Sea, how cute!

This is one of my favourite bentos so far - but also one of my most time consuming - I think it must have taken me half an hour! Mostly because I didn't plan it in advance - so much time was spent staring at the food I had on hand trying to envision how to use it to create what I had in mind.  Also I did make 2 of everything, but the other Sassy bowl is pink, so I didn't take a photo :)

I knew I wanted to do a sea life theme - I'd seen the adorable wiener crabs in this tutorial from Cute Food For Kids and just HAD to try them. They were so simple too! The faces did take some time to cut out and stick on with pancake syrup and tweezers, but they weren't difficult.

I had some rice stars pre-made (when we have rice left over I use my egg molds to make up a bunch of shapes for the rest of the week) so it was a snap to add a cheese smile to make a starfish. I tried to make the cantaloupe into coral by slicing it and randomly cutting chunks from the slices with half of a flower shaped cutter, then arranging the pieces to look like a tangle of coral reef... hmm... ok. The cucumber seaweed was a last minute trial & error addition - the ones you see here are the 3rd and 4th attempts - the first 2 just didn't work out, so I ate them :) And of course, got to have goldfish crackers in a sea life bento, the girls love goldfish.

It was NOT a bento for a busy morning, but today I had time, and Birdie, Sprout and I all loved how it turned out ♥ 

I made a big mess on the counter too, lots of little scraps, but luckily they were yummy all mixed together for my lunch. Scrap salad, I have that a lot  :)




I won Bento of the Week : Smiles! Thanks to all who voted!

Oh, I almost forgot! Here are Pickle's peanut butter sandwiches!

And I'll let you in on a a bread-saving secret... the sandwich bottoms don't have to look pretty! When using cookie cutters instead of Lunch Punches, I often cut the bottom shapes from the larger scraps, and piece them together. The peanut butter holds them in place and Pickle never even looks underneath :)