Frequently Asked Questions

All orders are shipped within two business days (including personalised ones), but most will be shipped the following business day. We try to prioritise orders where a customer has paid for express shipping.

If you need your order super urgently, give us a call or send us an instant message. In some instances we can ship on the same day, including personalised orders.

See our Shipping page for delivery times to your particular area.

No problem! Give us a call or send us an instant message with the design/colour you want, when you need it and your postcode. We'll check our stock and Austrlia Post's delivery time and if we can help we will, no extra charge, no 'rush fee'.  

If you contact us and order before lunchtime, in many instances we can ship your order on the same day, including personalised orders.

Orders up to $100: flat rate of $8.50

Orders over $100: free shipping

Express Post: $11 per order

International: see our shipping page

Contact us first to check that we will be around at a time that is convenient.

We are located in Bayswater in Melbourne. 

Yes, just specify the shipping address during checkout. This can be different to the billing address.

Yes! We can personalise your toy with anything, within the limits of space (the more text, the smaller it has to be to fit). To order, add the details to the personalisation text fields on the product page.

Maybe. We can laser etch any flat surface, for example the underside of the aeroplane wings, back of rattles etc. Due to equipment constraints, we cannot etch around the perimeter.

To order text in a non-standard location, leave the details in the 'comments' box in the shopping cart. We will contact you if we have any problems.

Yes and no!

We manufacture everything we sell in-house, so have scope to do custom work. We can make bulk orders of custom items to your design, bulk orders of wooden boxes and personalise bulk orders of our existing toys with your logo or message. For details see our custom and corporate orders page.

Toys - one offs:

As it takes a lot of work to design and prototype new designs, plus test them to the mandatory Australian Standard for toy safety (AS8124), one-offs are not viable. 

Toys - contract manufacturing:

If you have a fully developed design, we're happy to do contract manufacturing on a build to print basis. That is, we manufacture the item to your specifications and the you're responsible for development and AS8124 compliance of the design. It takes a significant amount of time, prototyping and testing to take a concept to a market ready toy, something we unfortunately don't have the time to do, so your design needs to be well developed and ready for manufacturing. 

Manufacturing in Australia also means we're unlikely to be cost competitive, especially if we take a cut then you take a cut (and potentially a retailer too). This is a large part of why we manufacture our products in-house.  

Other items:

We make all of our products in house, so if you have a specific item you want made, we may be able to help you. See our Corporate and Custom Orders page for more info.

Our capabilities include CNC routing (up to 1000x1000mm) and laser cutting/etching (eg logos). We specialise in medium upwards quantities of smaller items. We can work from a hand sketch, drawing or 3D CAD model. We're happy to source and use almost any readily available timber. 

info@miltonashby.com.au">Contact us for a quote or to discuss your project.

Our toys are made using Beech and Tasmanian Oak timbers. We use Livos and Osmo natural oils and non-toxic water based Resene paints and varnish. All our surface finishes comply with the Australian Standard for toy safety.

As we take toy safety extremely seriously, we do not use recycled timber as we cannot be sure of where it was used and what may have leeched into it during its original use.  

Our workshop is located in Bayswater, in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Our toys enter our workshop as planks of wood and leave as the beautiful toys you see on our website. We make everything in house, except a few of the small parts, which we have custom made in the USA. All of the personalisation is done in house.

We often get asked if we discount or ever have sales. The short answer is no.

The reasons are many:

• The cost of producing our products locally is high, in particular, we pay fair, Australian wages. While our products are not cheap, we sell them for a fair price given what they cost to make, so don’t have much room to discount. The upside of this is that they are made by people who care, not the lowest bidder.
• People who paid the full price would feel like they got ripped off.
• To have sales, we would have to put our ‘normal’ prices up to cover the discount, so most people would end up paying more.
• Sales are addictive and destructive to businesses, so like drugs, we refrain from the outset.

It also enables us to focus on making the best quality products around, backed up by the best service going around, not sales gimmicks. For example, need your order super urgently? No problem! Contact us and if we can ship it quicker we will. No 'rush fee'. Want a non-standard colour? If we can we will. No extra charge. We think everyone is better off this way. 

We hope you understand!

We accept PayPal, AfterPay, ZipPay, Visa and Mastercard.

We use a secure checkout to ensure that your data is safe.

Yes (for Australian purchases).

Lightly sand it with fine (approx 240 grit) sandpaper to remove any chips, then lightly apply two coats of Osmo Polyx oil to the worn areas.

info@miltonashby.com.au" title="email us">Email us with your address if you would like us to send you a small jar of oil.

To clean your rattle or teether, wipe it down with a damp cloth and a little dishwashing detergent. Do not immerse it in water or use a dishwasher.

Yes, and after a hiatus of a few years, we are now taking on new stockists. shannon@miltonashby.com.au" title="email us">Email us if you are interested in becoming a stockist and we will send you our wholesale details.

We get this quite a bit and we don't mind talking to and helping others in the same space. Our reasons are as follows:

1. What goes around comes around,
2. The children’s toy pie is big enough for plenty of people to have a slice. We believe that more people promoting high quality, locally made products will expand that segment for everyone.

Before asking for help, we ask 3 things:

• You look for the information on our website and the internet. The answers to the most common questions we get from competitors are on our website or are relatively easy to find on the internet.
• You also believe in point 1 above. Specifically, you would be willing to answer any reasonable question we ask.
• You are upfront about what you're doing and why you’re asking. It’s obvious when people aren’t and it suggests that either you don’t believe in point 1 above or are trying to copy us (which would not be a good strategy anyway). More info about what you're doing also helps us better help you. In summary, the more info you give us, the more willing to help we'll be.

We get quite a few questions regarding compliance with the Australian Standard. We're neither lawyers nor technical advisors and don't understand the specifics of what you're doing, so it would be irresponsible of us to give specific advice on this. Our recommendation is that you purchase a copy of the standard, read it cover to cover, know the key areas intimately, design your product with the requirements of the standard in mind and get your products tested by an appropriate test lab.

That said, get in touch. Hopefully we can help each other! 

Customers are always our highest priority and we often struggle to find time to develop our own products, so apologies in advance if we take a little while to reply.