Two arrivals from Gus + Mabel this month. The felt habitats are back, with the collection grown since we last carried them. The Busy Bee Tray is new to the shop entirely.
From the shop, Los Angeles
Gus + Mabel is a small studio in Australia, founded by Chanelle in 2016. The line is designed in Australia and produced in their privately owned factory in China; a sentence we ask about for every supplier, and one they answer cleanly. Their work draws from Montessori, Waldorf, and Charlotte Mason approaches, which is why it sits naturally on a homeschool shelf, and just as easily on a kitchen counter.
The Busy Bee Tray
New to our shop.
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 ships with every configuration. The interior is satin-matte. Five and a half to six pounds in the hand. Substantial.
What it is for is open play. Three configurations, each sold complete with its embossed lid. The Reflective Play Mirror Inlay is the one add-on we reach for first.
We have watched it used as a play-dough station, a sand tray, a base for rolling pasta with a four-year-old, and with the mirror slipped in, as a small water mirror with felt fish floating on top.
What earned it a place on our shelf:
- Scales from six months (felt balls in the open base) to six years (dried herbs sorted by color, a Reggio-style invitation).
- The three configurations fit one inside another. Multiple set-ups going at once, none of them needing a new home.
- Genuinely dishwasher-safe. After turmeric play-dough and beet-stained rice, the bamboo composite came out clean and unwarped.
- Plant-based, biodegradable, compostable. Not a melamine pretending to be bamboo.
- The lid is the underrated feature. Set-ups do not need to be cleared at dinner. Lid on, slide it to the side, pick up where you left off.
The Reflective Play Mirror Inlay
A thin acrylic mirror cut to drop into the tray, with a small finger notch on one edge. Shatterproof, easy to wipe. The one add-on we reach for if your child is under three.
Children under three respond to mirrors the way they respond to faces. Add a few felt mushrooms or a handful of acorns on top and you get reflected light, doubled objects, and the kind of long focus that is hard to engineer with most toys.
Three configurations
- Half tray, two compartments. Best for younger children and water play.
- Quarter tray, four compartments. Best for sorting, color work, and small-world setups.
- Sixth tray, six compartments. Best for older children working with loose parts, dried herbs, or a curated invitation.
Each ships with its lid.
Care
Do not leave colored paints or dyes pooling 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. Like wood, bamboo fiber prefers shade.
The felt habitats
Back in stock. The collection has grown since we last carried them.
Needle-felted playscapes in dense, hand-felted wool. Dimensional, not flat printed mats. The coral, the moss, the mushrooms, the duck: all stand up off the surface.
Coralwhim Cove and Featherfloat Pond are 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, for mixing with figures and loose parts.
Each habitat 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 carry both lines from this studio. They were built to live together.
Why we carry them
Gus + Mabel is the second studio on our shelf that treats textile and sensory play as a complete philosophy rather than a side category. Tara Treasures is the first. Both are made well enough to pass to a younger sibling, and quiet enough in their styling that they do not compete with the room.
If you have not met either, the Busy Bee Tray is the most useful place to start. Half configuration with the Reflective Play Mirror Inlay for a child under three, quarter for ages three to six, sixth for older children working with smaller curated invitations.
