Back To School Giveaway: Lunchbox Love!

I love our Lunchbox Love for Kids notes, they're a fun way to connect with my sproutlets while they're at school, and we often enjoy discussing what their cards said when I pick them up.  They sometimes tell me that their whole lunch table enjoyed the fun trivia or joke as well :) I'm so pleased to be able to share some of that Lunchbox Love fun, with a giveaway! 

The folks at Say Please have generously offered to send one of my readers 4 volumes of Lunchbox Love for Kids, & the 2 volumes of the new Lunchbox Love for Kids Riddles! That's 72 Lunchbox Love notes, awesome!

We love the new Lunchbox Love for Kids Riddles!

Just like the original Lunchbox Love for Kids, the new Riddles cards feature positive messages on the front, but instead of a fun fact or joke on the back, these cards feature a tricky riddle (and answer) that's sure to entertain your child & their lunch companions :)

You may recognize this lunch I packed for Bella,  I shared it earlier this week in a round up of lunch box note bentos, but I didn't mention that the Lunchbox Love note I included is from Volume 1 of those new Riddles :)

Bella & her siblings had fun trying to guess the answer to the riddle on the back of her Lunchbox Love, & made some funny guesses before Bella got it! And the message on the front made her smile right away :)

Do you know a riddle, joke, fun fact, or sweet sentiment you'd like to see on a Lunchbox Love note? Share it in the comments at the bottom of this post, then enter the Giveaway via the widget below:

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Lunchbox Love for my Loved One

My Sailor Boy is home from deployment! ♥  He's on leave for now, so I don't need to pack him a lunch, but after he unpacked his sea bag, I slipped some Lunchbox Love for Loved Ones into the pockets of his uniforms, for him to find when he's back at work... I hope he doesn't read this!

I chose that card for what was on the front, and completely forgot to look at the trivia on the back! Sometimes I choose a card for it's sentiment, sometimes for the fun fact, just like I do with the Lunchbox Love for Kids :) The card above is from Lunchbox Love for Loved Ones, Volume 2. Here are a few more of my favorites from that set:

I'm so happy to have my Sailor Boy home after his long deployment! And while I'm not looking forward to him going back to work, I am looking forward to making him lunch again, and choosing the perfect Lunchbox Love note to tuck in with it :) Here are a few of my favorites that I've made him:

A thankful lunch for Thanksgiving:

Some pies for Pi Day:

A farewell lunch from when he shipped out:

In case he does read this:

Welcome home my love!

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P.S.  This is not a sponsored post - all gushing about Lunchbox Love is my own because I ♥ them.

Sweet New Yumbox Panino!

We've got a new Yumbox, the Panino!  6th grader Bella's excited about this new Yumbox! It has fewer sections in a different configuration than the Original Yumbox, but they're larger, & more suited to the kinds of lunches she likes. The dip/treat well in the center holds more too. Bella loves the Frutti Blue, it's one of her favourite hues! Here's her first lunch in the Panino:

Bella's Yumbox Panino contains:

• Heart-shaped peanut butter sandwiches embossed with a love note! I used my cookie message stamp set.
• Tomato wedges, as requested, with little bento forks that match the Lunchbox Love note I chose; sweets for my sweet ♥ 
• A handful of her Daddy's pistachios, she loves those. 
• Grapes, with a little purple koala pick in them just for cuteness :)

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Stuff used to make this lunch:

Message in a Bento: 11 Lunch Note Ideas

When I pack my kidlets a bento I'm sending them to school with more than a nutritious & waste-free lunch... packing their favourite foods with fun touches also sends the message that I love them & want them to enjoy their meal! And it doesn't need to be fancy to be fun; simply adding an amusing or encouraging note is enough to brighten their lunch & their day :)

I love including a Lunchbox Love note ♥ Each colourful card has a positive message on one side, a joke or fun fact on the other. My sproutlets tell me the whole lunch table enjoys them - hooray for sharing the Love!

 In this lunch:  Watermelon & cantaloupe, cereal & pretzel snack mix, cheddar tortilla spirals, a heart-shaped hard-cooked egg, & symphony tomatoes, packed in Laptop Lunches.

A bananagram is an a-peel-ing way to slip in a note :) Did you know you can write on a banana's peel with something pointed, like a toothpick, & your message will turn brown by lunchtime? I'm sure I got a bunch of smiles with this silly pun message for my sproutlet who was getting over a cold.

 In this lunch:  Babybel cheese with smiley face cut-out, banana, crackers, mini turkey pepperoni, golden & orange carrots, grapes, & pistachios, packed in Laptop Lunches.

No artistic ability was needed to make this confidence booster!  I used Wilton alphabet cutters to add some encouragement to my nervous about starting middle school 6th grader's sandwich :)

In this lunch:  Peanut butter sandwich, cantaloupe,  apple wedges & caramel dip, & Babybel cheese with star cut-out,  packed in Laptop Lunches.

Make an impression with a stamped sandwich! Cookie stamps can also be used on bread! I have a cookie message set for embossing words & phrases, even more fun ... fondant stamps would work just as well :)

In this lunch:  Embossed peanut butter sandwich, apple wedges, strawberry hearts, & yogurt with rainbow marshmallow bits, packed in Laptop Lunches.

7 more ways to leave a message in their lunchbox:

• Food markers. Write a note on their sandwich, cookie, or cheese!
• Alphabet crackers or cookies. Glue them to a granola bar or across a sandwich with honey :)
• Alphabet bento picks. Stick them in almost anything to spell out a message. I use mine a lot! There is 1 of each letter per package so I got 3 sets to have enough letters.
• Include a little chalkboard, like these Lunch Box Scribbles.
• Dry erase marker. Make a test mark on your lunchbox first, in a spot that won't be seen, just in case. 
• Write on erasable stickers made for labeling food!
• You can always write a message or draw a picture on a piece of note paper, or if you use them, paper napkin (like this dad!), plastic baggie (like this dad!), or paper lunch bag (like this dad!). 

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☺ This post contains affiliate links to the tools used to create these lunches.

Doctor Who Starry Night PlanetBoxes

One of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who is Series 5's Vincent and the Doctor, in which the Eleventh Doctor & Amy spend time with Vincent Van Gogh. I'll not give any spoilers about the episode in case you haven't seen it yet, I'll just tell you that every time I watch it I get a serious case of the feels. Bella loves it too, so she loved this Van Gogh-inspired PlanetBox:

Bella's PlanetBox Rover contains:

• Cucumber & cantaloupe stars
• Chocolate sprinkle-topped oatmeal muffin sunflower 
• Green grapes on the vine
• Cheddar tortilla swirls on swirly picks
• Babybel cheese carved with a really lame DW logo ;)
• Spiced sunflower seeds
• Starry Night cloth napkin from Beneficial-Bento
• Happy little fork - for the stars
• & a Lunchbox Love note

Before closing the lid, I folded the Van Gogh print napkin under the Little Dipper, turned the Babybel over, placed the Lunchbox Love note over the sunflower muffin, & challenged Bella to guess the theme of her lunch. 

Not only did she guess correctly, she also recognized my terrible logo carving :) Pickle, on the other hand, did not get his. I didn't really expect him to - he doesn't truly watch the show, he just watches it here & there when someone else is, because it's on. He did ask me for a Doctor Who lunch not long ago though so I didn't want to make Bella one and leave him out - and once I explained it to him he got it, and seemed to like it :

Pickle's PlanetBox Shuttle contains:

• Mozzarella cheese stick bites with a bow tie pick
• Yogurt with star sprinkles & blue sugar swirls
• Peanut butter sandwich sunflowers with chocolate sprinkles
• A Van Gogh's  Starry Night cloth napkin from Beneficial-Bento
• A happy little spoon for the yogurt
• & a Lunchbox Love note ♥

The sproutlets & I all loved the Eleventh Doctor, but that doesn't mean we aren't looking forward to getting to know the Twelfth! And we don't have to wait much longer, Series 8 begins tomorrow :)  A new season of Doctor Who is an excellent reason for the bento bloggers of Edible Geekery to do a blog hop, so we are! Click the TARDIS button to be taken to Loving Lunches!

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Have you seen my keys?

Last week I was a guest on my friend Stacey's blog,  Student Bento. Stacey & I have something besides bento in common - a family member on the autism spectrum - so I decided to make my post about my Pickle's lunch. Here's my little man waving hello as he eats that very lunch. Can you guess what it is?

If you follow my blog you probably already know that Pickle has autism & is quite stuck on having a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, every day, which inspired my 101 peanut butter sandwiches challenge. When I began that challenge I made a list of creative sandwich ideas, & I still haven't gotten around to making all of them. Piano keys is one from way back, I'm so glad I finally made it! Here's Pickle pretending to play his piano sandwich:

Piano keys was an idea that I kept putting off because I thought it would be a bit time-consuming. And it was, especially since I don't play piano,  so I had to keep checking a photo of one to be sure I got the key shapes right! But hooray, it's summer, I had plenty of time! And Pickle helped! Read how in my post at Student Bento :)  And in case you don't care to read more & just came here to look at the pictures, here's Pickle's piano peanut butter sandwich:

FYI: No scraps were wasted in the making of this sandwich. Pickle stood beside me while I made it,  happily snacking on the bits I cut off ;) 

Dollar Store Storage Solution

I found these interlocking drawer organizer containers sold in sets of 3 at Dollar Tree. They perfectly fill the space in my kitchen drawers!

Perfect for all those little cookie cutters & silicone cups! There were also rectangular ones - I put our used Lunchbox Love notes in one, most of the time they're still good for another few uses :)

Want to see the rest of my drawers? Click here: A Place For Everything

Shark Week Sharknado Hero

Birdie's my mini-me in so many ways - one of which is our taste in TV shows. She's been enjoying Discovery Channel's Shark Week with me, and she loved Syfy's Sharknado 1 & 2,  and Sharktopus vs Pteracuda. Science or science fiction, it's all good to her :)  Monday we watched Discovery's Monster Hammerhead, after which she asked me to make her a shark lunch, with a hammerhead pick. Here she is with it, making a shark face, she says:

The sproutlets loved yesterday's Sharknado cinnamon rolls & wanted me to bake more Sharknado rolls today. Well, I did bake rolls, they're just not cinnamon... they're pizza rolls! And I used the rest of my shark cupcake picks to make them Sharknado Pizza Rolls :)

Baking is not my forte.  I use premade Pillsbury crescent roll dough, roll it out but don't separate it, brush with marinara sauce, sprinkle with cheese, roll up again,  slice, & bake at the temperature & time suggested on the package.

Birdie's shark lunch contains:

• a Sharknado pizza roll with a tiger shark pick
• grapes with the requested hammerhead shark  pick
• yogurt with circling sugar sprinkle sharks
• strawberry chum - heheh ;)

I packed Birdie's shark-themed lunch in one of our new Goodbyn Hero lunchboxes. We're loving this addition to the Goodbyn line! It's comes with 2 sizes of leakproof lidded inner containers, & there's even enough room to fit the Goodbyn drink bottle inside :) And there's always room for a Lunchbox Love note ♥ Especially one with trivia that goes with the lunch!

 

Stuff I used to make this lunch:

Birdie & I had fun playing with SyFy's Go Shark Yourself App. She made this pic of herself about to be attacked while sunbathing on our back porch :)