I'm no good at math, either, but I do like a challenge:) I found a website that has some tables to calculate bead quantities:
http://bergerbeads.net/sizecha...
It comes up with approximately 199-226 5 mm (OK, I read it wrong-it should only be 23 5 mm beads per square inch, not 200) "beads" per square inch depending on the arrangement. This seems like a lot.....
Then, from this page I found on Google:
http://ncalculators.com/area-v...
It says that a 6 inch sphere has approx 453 square inches (seems like a lot, but who am I to argue with Google?).
So, using that information, the estimate is that you need 102, 378 jewels. Which doesn't possibly seem like it could be correct-hope they are cheap:) (my adjusted calculation is about 10,500 5mm jewels to cover a 6" ball)
Using my own math calculations which are definitely NOT guaranteed, I would guess 16 5mm jewels (assuming that a 5mm jewel is approx 1/4 inch) per square inch? Multiply that by the 453 square inches and you get 7,248 jewels, which seems slightly more reasonable to me
Sorry, I'm not very helpful but I at least wanted to try:)
