An Australian studio you'll hear from often. And the small embossed tray we keep restocking.
From the shop, Los Angeles
Every once in a while a brand turns up in the warehouse that changes the shape of the shelf. Gus + Mabel did this for us in late winter. We are now four restocks in.
If you haven't met them yet, here's what to know. Gus + Mabel is a small Australian studio founded in 2016 by Chanelle, a mother of three. The line is designed in Australia and ethically produced in their privately owned factory in China — a sentence we ask about for every supplier, and one they answer cleanly. Their work draws openly from Montessori, Waldorf, and Charlotte Mason approaches, which is part of why it sits naturally on a homeschool shelf, and equally at home on a kitchen counter.
We carry the Busy Bee Tray, its Reflective Play Mirror Inlay, and four of their felt habitats. The tray is the one we keep restocking, and the one this post is mostly about.
The Busy Bee Tray
It's a round play tray, just under sixteen inches across, made from bamboo fiber composite. The lid is embossed with native Australian flora and fauna, and it ships included with every configuration. The interior is satin-matte. Five and a half to six pounds in the hand, depending on configuration. Substantial.
What it's actually for is open play. The tray comes in three configurations, each sold complete with its embossed lid. The Reflective Play Mirror Inlay is the one add-on, an acrylic mirror cut to drop in.
We've watched it used as a play-dough station, a sand tray, a base for rolling pasta with a four-year-old, and (with the inlay slipped in) as a small water mirror with felt fish floating on top.
A few things that earned this its shelf space:
- It scales from a six-month-old reaching for felt balls in the open base, to a six-year-old sorting dried herbs and orange peels by color.
- It stacks. The three configurations fit one inside another, so you can keep multiple set-ups going and rotate without finding new homes for everything.
- It is, genuinely, top-shelf dishwasher-safe. After messy play with turmeric play-dough and beet-stained rice, the bamboo composite came out clean and unwarped.
- It is one of the few play trays on the market that is plant-based, biodegradable, and compostable. Not a melamine pretending to be bamboo.
- The lid is, in our opinion, the underrated feature. Set-ups don't need to be cleared at dinner. Lid on, slide the whole tray to the side of the table, lid off, pick up where you left off.
The Reflective Play Mirror Inlay
The one add-on we recommend if you're buying the tray for a child under three. A thin acrylic mirror cut to drop into the tray, with a small finger notch on one edge. Shatterproof, lightweight, easy to wipe.
Children under three respond to mirrors the same way they respond to faces. Add a few felt mushrooms or a handful of acorns on top of the mirror, and you get reflected light, doubled objects, and the kind of long focus that's hard to engineer with most toys.
Three configurations, none of them wrong
- Half tray, two compartments. Best for younger children and water play. Pair with the Reflective Play Mirror Inlay if your child is under three.
- Quarter tray, four compartments. Best for sorting, color theory, and small-world setups.
- Sixth tray, six compartments. Best for older children working with loose parts, beads, dried herbs, or a Reggio-style invitation.
Each ships with its lid.
Care, briefly
Bamboo composite is durable but not invincible. Don't drop it on tile. Don't leave colored paints or dyes pooling in it overnight; staining is possible with natural materials. A baking-soda paste rubbed in with a soft cloth pulls most stains. Lemon works on tannins. Skip the bleach.
Don't leave it in direct sun for an afternoon. Like wood, bamboo fiber prefers shade.
The felt habitats
The same studio makes a small line of needle-felted playscapes. They're substantial, hand-felted wool, and dimensional — not flat printed mats. The coral, the moss, the mushrooms, the duck, all stand up off the surface. Four of them landed with this restock, each one a small world unto itself.
Coralwhim Cove and Featherfloat Pond are full habitats in their own right, large enough to anchor a small-world story on the floor. Fairy Streamlet is the storybook one, with the felt toadstool tea-cup and the caterpillar mid-walk on a log. Tiny Terrains is a set of four smaller mats in moss, snow, autumn, and water, designed to be combined with figures and loose parts of your choosing.
Each one also fits inside the Busy Bee Tray, which turns the whole thing into a small-world scene with a built-in border. That overlap is part of why we now stock both lines from this studio. They're built to live together.
A practical note: the trays are substantial. Just under sixteen inches across, bamboo fiber composite, five and a half to six pounds depending on configuration.
Why we carry them
Gus + Mabel is the second studio on our shelf that centers textile and sensory play as a complete philosophy rather than a side category. Tara Treasures is the first. Both are heirloom in the literal sense: well enough made to pass to a younger sibling, and quiet enough in their styling that they don't shout in a room.
If you've already met our Tara Treasures range, Gus + Mabel will feel like a parallel line. If you haven't met either, the Busy Bee Tray is the most useful place to begin. We'd suggest the half configuration with the Reflective Play Mirror Inlay for a child under three, the quarter for ages three to six, and the sixth for older children working with smaller, more curated invitations.
Shop the post — three places to start
- Busy Bee Tray, Half (with lid) — $165
- Reflective Play Mirror Inlay — $32
- Fairy Streamlet Felt Habitat — $116
Browse the full Gus + Mabel collection →
"Their work draws openly from Montessori, Waldorf, and Charlotte Mason. Built to live together, and to live a long time."
