craftgrrl | Bulk shells and gems (Reply)

I was asked to do a craft with the summer camp kids at my kid's daycare. The theme for the week is Treasure Island.

I found a really tutorial online to make treasure chests out of tissue boxes. Now, I want to be able to have things for them to make the chests fancy. I was thinking about seashells and those little flat backed gemstones.

Problem is, I can't find them in bulk online. I have looked in about 20 different online wholesale craft stores, and they only have little packs of like 10. There are 20 children.... and I would like to buy 200-300 of these.

With the seashell, I found an AWESOME place online. You can get a 5lb bag of large shells for 10. (which would give me 100-150 shells) They also had great prices on Starfish. 2 dozen 3"-4" for only $10! The problem is, you have to have a $50 minimum order. I looked at a few other places as well... but none had such great prices! To bad I have no use for $50 worth of seashells!

So, do you know of any place online I can get either of those? If it's it a craft store online, I can spend the $50 minimum. I can always find crafts for my kids. And it can be wholesale, I have a tax ID# for my business.

Oh, and can you think of any other treausre type craft ideas. I'm staying away from pirates. just because this is a Christian Camp, and I don't know if Pirates will go over well. haha

Thanks Girls!