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Sandstories Apparel

wear your practice — soft, intentional, and made for the room

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available
sandstories logo tee
Soft cotton tee with the Sandstories wordmark. Wear it to the office, the conference, or the grocery store where you explain what sand tray therapy is for the hundredth time.
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available
your world. your story. tee
The Sandstories tagline on a crisp tee. Simple, grounding, and the kind of thing a client notices on your shelf and asks about — which is its own kind of intervention.
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available
youth tee
For the small humans in your life — or for practitioners who appreciate a truly excellent fit. Sandstories logo in the classic style, sized for the next generation.
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coming soon
practitioner long sleeve
For the colder months, the longer sessions, and the practitioners who appreciate a sleeve they can roll up when the work gets deep. Dark colorway, Sandstories logo.

Books & Manuals

practical, grounded resources written by practitioners, for practitioners

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available
the school counselor's sandtray playbook — vol. 1: elementary
A complete, session-ready guide for bringing sand tray therapy into the elementary school setting. Themes, prompts, case examples, and the practical wisdom that only comes from doing this work with real kids.
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coming soon
the school counselor's sandtray playbook — vol. 2: middle school
The follow-up to Volume 1, written for the specific landscape of middle school — the complexity, the self-consciousness, the enormous therapeutic opportunity hiding behind the eye-rolls.
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coming soon
sandtray 101: the practitioner's quick-start guide
Everything a new practitioner needs to set up their space, introduce the tray, and start doing the work with confidence — without the overwhelm of a 400-page textbook.
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coming soon
miniature themes & clinical applications reference
A desk reference organized by therapeutic theme — grief, trauma, identity, attachment, transitions — with recommended pieces and prompts for each. The book you keep next to the tray.

Curated Sets

thoughtfully assembled collections — start your tray or fill a gap

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available
the starter set
A hand-selected collection of 20 essential miniatures covering animals, people, archetypes, and nature — everything you need to open the tray and do real work on day one.
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available
the animal kingdom set
25 carefully chosen animals spanning predators, prey, mythic creatures, and companions — the full emotional range that only the animal world can carry in a sand tray.
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available
the people & figures set
A diverse collection of human figures — children, adults, cultural characters, and archetypes — for exploring relationships, family systems, identity, and the social world.
coming soon
the complete collection
All 156 miniatures, organized and ready — every category, every piece, the full therapeutic range of the Sandstories collection. For the practitioner who wants it all in one place.

Amazon Picks

tools, books & supplies we use and recommend — shopped through our affiliate links

Recommended reading

Books Worth Owning

Resources I own, use, and return to — for building and deepening your sandtray practice.

Affiliate disclosure. Sandstories participates in the Amazon Associates program. When you purchase through the links below, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. We only recommend titles we have purchased, used, and loved.
The Ultimate Must Buy Sandtray Text!
Sandtray Therapy: A Practical Manual (4th ed.)
Linda Homeyer & Daniel Sweeney
If you are even remotely thinking about bringing sandtray into your practice, stop what you are doing and buy this book right now! This is hands-down the absolute bible of sandtray work, and it is the text I return to over and over again. I am obsessed with how accessible it is. Starting out with sandtray can feel incredibly overwhelming—you're wondering what miniatures to buy, how to set up the room, and what to actually say while a client is building. This manual takes all that imposter syndrome and completely washes it away. It feels like having a warm, expert mentor sitting right next to you, whispering, "You've got this, and here is exactly how to do it." It is an absolute masterpiece and a non-negotiable anchor for your shelf!
View on Amazon →
Ready to Deepen Your Work in the Tray?
Advanced Sandtray Therapy
Linda Homeyer & Marshall Lyles
Once you have the basics down and you're ready to take your practice to a much deeper level, you absolutely must read this book! Pairing Linda Homeyer with Marshall Lyles is pure genius—it completely shifts the focus away from the basic logistics of world-building and dives straight into the therapist's internal presence, neurobiology, and trauma work. If you've ever sat beside a client processing heavy wounds and wanted to trust your own clinical intuition even more without getting in the way or over-interpreting, this is your roadmap. It takes complex, deep theory and makes it feel incredibly grounding and accessible. It is the perfect next step after the first manual, and it will completely transform how you hold space for your clients' stories!
View on Amazon →
Clinical Manual
Play Therapy (4th ed.)
Gary Landreth
If you've ever wondered what book completely transformed my approach to working with kids, this is the one! Gary Landreth's Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship is absolute required reading for any clinician stepping into a playroom. What I love most about it is that it doesn't just give you a checklist of rigid tools—it teaches you how to truly be with a child. It focuses beautifully on Child-Centered Play Therapy, emphasizing how to see and understand the child's world from their perspective. It's packed with incredible, timeless "Rules of Thumb" that I still mentally check into during my sessions when I need to get out of my own head. Whether you are a brand-new counselor or a seasoned therapist looking for a grounding reminder of why we do this work, this book is an indispensable anchor for your shelf!
View on Amazon →
Foundational Text
Dibs in Search of Self
Virginia Axline
If you ever need a reminder of why we actually do this heavy work, please go buy Virginia Axline's Dibs in Search of Self right now. It's a true story that honestly reads like a gripping novel, following this brilliant but deeply withdrawn little boy named Dibs as he goes through child-centered play therapy. What I absolutely love about it is how it pulls back the curtain—you get to witness the actual, messy, beautiful process of a child finding his voice and emotional freedom in a safe room. Axline's patience and deep respect for letting Dibs lead on his own timeline is a total masterclass for any expressive clinician. I recommend this book to every single counselor I meet!
View on Amazon →
For your in-person practice

Physical Trays

Sandstories handles the digital tray — these are for your in-person work. Affiliate links below; we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Wooden Sandtray
Sandtray — Blue Interior
Traditional dimensions: 28.5″ × 19.5″ × 3″
The standard sandtray size used in most clinical training programs. Blue interior represents water and sky when you brush aside the sand.
Search Amazon →
Wooden Sandtray
Wooden Sandtray with Stand
For in-person sandtray work
Sturdy stand keeps the tray at a comfortable working height for clients of all ages.
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The Second-Life Collection

Every object has a story.
Now it can help tell someone else’s.

A curated shop of pre-loved sandtray miniatures — sourced from estates, retiring practitioners, and educators who gave them a first life. Inspected, cleaned, and priced so that the cost of a collection is never the reason the work doesn’t happen.

Opening soon. The first round of curated lots is being inventoried right now in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Join the notification list — we’ll write you the day it opens. One email. That’s it.
CT
From the person doing the sourcing

The shop is a hands-on operation.

I’m Cameron — I run the Sandstories Shop. My background is in sports operations and journalism, where I learned the same lesson in different uniforms: pay attention to the small things, care about the details, and tell the truth about what you’re seeing.

Every piece in the shop passes through my hands before it gets near yours. I find items through estate sales, donations from retiring practitioners, and educators downsizing their collections. I clean each figure, check for chips and cracks, photograph it, and pack every order myself.

If something isn’t good enough for a clinical space, it doesn’t make the cut. If you get a box from us, everything in it has been through that process.

Cameron Turner Director of Operations, Sandstories LLC

Why second-life

A working sandtray collection can run hundreds to thousands of dollars new. For many clinicians, that’s frequently the difference between offering sandtray work and not offering it at all.

We believe every object — like every person — carries a story. By sourcing from practitioners and collectors who are ready to pass their pieces on, we keep quality tools in clinical hands at a fraction of the cost of new. The miniature that sat in a closet for five years may be exactly what your next client needs to tell their story.

What you’ll find

The Sandstories Shop carries the full range of what sandtray work requires — not just what sells easily.

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Animals
Domestic, wild, fantastical — the full arc of what clients reach for
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People & Figures
Diverse in age, ethnicity, ability, and role — clients should see themselves
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Structures
Buildings, fences, bridges, thresholds — the architecture of a scene
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Nature & Landscape
Trees, rocks, water elements — for the clients who build with the earth
Archetypes & Symbols
The small, strange objects every sandtray clinician knows they need
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Starter Lots
Curated sets for school counseling, hospice, family therapy, and more
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