Special Delivery Lunches : Cupcake & Pirate

I recently had the pleasure of making fun lunches for my friend's little girl & delivering them to her at school while her mother was away for a couple of days. Her little girl is called Bella too, so I just had to use my alphabet stamps in one of the lunches, I already had the name put together! 

Bella's Cute Personalized Lunch contains:

• strawberry Go-Gurt (frozen in an L shape to fit)
• cupcake ham & cheese sandwich made with a Lunch Punch, stamped with her name, & topped with a cherry tomato
• roll of Rockets candy (or Smarties if you're American)
• organic strawberries cut like hearts, with a heart fork pick
• organic green grapes in a pink flower silicone cup

For the other day, she asked if I could make her a lunch like the one I made Birdie on Talk Like A Pirate Day, but without berries, & jelly instead of cheese on her treasure map sandwich. She definitely wanted me to include the jelly bean treasure & chocolate doubloon though! I packed her lunch in an EasyLunchbox with the treasure in a Mini Dipper.

Bella's Pirate Lunch contains:

• mozzarella string cheese through a pirate cupcake ring
• treasure map PB&J embellished with shark sprinkles, food marker, pirate flag, & palm tree cupcake pick
• organic green grapes
• jelly bean & chocolate coin treasure
• organic baby carrots

Both lunches were packed in EasyLunchboxes that she got to keep :) It was fun packing lunches for someone other than my own sproutlets! My friend told me how much her daughter was looking forward to lunch those days, rather than being bummed about having the school lunch, so I really wanted her to like them. And I'm told she loved them ♥

Back to School Bento Basics & Blooming Bento

If you asked me for a tip about packing bento lunches, I'd probably tell you ...
You don't need to spend a lot on bento tools & accessories - spend some time playing around with what you have on hand first! You may discover you already have more bento-worthy tools than you thought - and the most important tools - your creativity & ingenuity - are free ♥ 

But I know you want the fun bento stuff anyways, so be sure to do the Bento Bloggers & Friends Bento Basics Giveaway Blog Hop! 

I skipped the bento picks & went back to basics to make this simple flower-filled EasyLunchboxes bento. I made the cheese sandwich flowers with a cookie cutter from the Wilton 101 Cookie Cutters set I've had since I began making bento.  I've gotten so much use from this set! It has the complete alphabet, numbers, animals, vehicles, sports, seasonal & holiday shapes, flowers, hearts, stars, & more... a little of everything. I also cut some carrot blossoms, arranged grapes in a flower design, & filled a Tupperware Smidget with candy-coated chocolate sunflower seeds for a colourful treat:

The small blossoms are organic rainbow carrots! They came in a bundle with the usual orange carrots, plus yellow & purple ones (which have gold centers!) They're so pretty ♥ They all taste pretty much the same to me though, I don't think I'd be able to tell them apart in a taste test :) To make the carrot blossoms, I sliced a couple of rounds from the end of each carrot & cut it into a flower shape with a vegetable cutter.

 

To make the grape flower I arranged a few on their sides in a silicone baking cup, nestled one in the center of them, & filled the surrounding space with grapes of another colour. Cherry or grape tomatoes work well too :)

Before I put the lid on the EasyLunchbox, I added a colourful cloth napkin to the main compartment. Tip: use a cloth napkin to fill space & keep food from shifting. Lastly, I tucked in colourful Lunchbox Love note, to brighten my sproutlet's lunch & day :) And I did remember to put the lid on the Smidget!

Most of the stuff I used to make this lunch: 

 

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So, going back to my beginner to bento tip...  to help you get started building your bento toolbox from what's already in your kitchen, I've made a list of items that come to mind :)

Bento Tools & Accessories Already In Your Kitchen!

• A sharp paring knife is all you need to make striped cucumbers, checkered apples, & carrot stars.
• Drinking straws can be used to cut out tiny circles, ovals, & crescents for details & features.
• Tweezers are handy for placing tiny details where they go. 
• Cookie cutters can be used to cut sandwiches, cheese, lunch meat, & some fruits & veggies.
• Cookie stamps can be used to make impressions in bread, and even some fruits, like watermelon.
• Cupcake picks make awesome bento decorations! Save some from all the parties you give & go to :)
• A melon baller makes fun fruit shapes, & tiny rice balls (onigiri).
• Vegetable crinkle cutters can be used for more than veggies :)
• An empanada (dumpling) press makes fun filled mini-sandwiches.
• Cocktail picks & drink stirrers make great skewers.
• Bottle caps & medicine cups do double duty as circle cutters.
• Play dough cutters & accessories make brilliant bento tools! 

I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting, too. So while all those cute bento picks & themed cutter sets are fun to collect & use, you can take your time acquiring them while you use what you have. As you develop your skills & discover your style, it'll be easier to decide which items you really want  :)

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And hey, maybe you'll be a winner in the Bento Bloggers & Friends Back To School Bento Basics Giveaway ... the Grand Prize is a $70 gift voucher to BentoUSA ... what a bento shopping spree that would be!

Even if you don't win a prize, you'll get valuable tips from the Bento Bloggers & Friends that will make the blog hop worth your while - it'll be a bento learning experience :) Now, pay attention, here's how to enter: 

Take note of the letter & number on the blackboard puzzle piece below. Next, click the button beside it to hop to Lunches Fit for A Kid to see what tips Astrid has for you & get the next piece in the puzzle. Keep hopping & collecting puzzle pieces until you get to the Bento Bloggers & Friends blog, where you can enter the Giveaway! You'll need to put all your puzzle pieces in numerical order to spell the answer to a mandatory question in the Rafflecopter widget, then follow the instructions there to get more entries. Good luck!

   

More details about prizes & stuff in the Bento Bloggers & Friends blog post. Now go! Hop!

Jolly Holiday Hop - Go Green Trees

If you're a regular reader you know that I like to add a Lunchbox Love note to my sproutlets' lunches, and often choose a card that goes with the lunch somehow... but sometimes, the Lunchbox Love note is actually the inspiration for the lunch - like this card featuring a bit of trivia about Christmas trees:

No, I did not know that, and I doubt Sprout does either :) That fun fact inspired her Christmas trees & apples themed Go Green Lunch Box:

The Nutella sandwich tree "lights" are candy-coated sunflower seeds, stuck on with dabs of Nutella. That took a lot longer than I anticipated, I kept dropping them! But I love how the "apple tree" turned out , and it was easy :)

She also has raspberries, a Babybel cheese round "apple" with a leaf pick, & snowflake Ritz crackers. Hidden underneath the cheese is a surprise panda box filled with mint chocolate chips.

Bella has a Christmas tree fact in her Go Green Lunch Box as well ... Did you know that Christmas tree lights were invented by a telephone company employee? ...  Her Grandpa is a retired telephone company employee so she may find that interesting :)

Speaking of her Grandpa, Bella has him to thank for the All-Dressed potato chips in her lunch - he visited last weekend & brought a bag from Canada :) Ketchup chips too, Beanstalk likes those. Besides the chips, she has cocktail tomatoes with a tree pick, mini pepper "Christmas lights", & dried strawberries in a star cup. Beneath the the star is an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie.

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Now be on your merry way & see what's for lunch at Mommy & Me Lunchbox! Then keep following the panda for 13+ more lunches!

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Some stuff used to make these lunches: 

Personalized Preschool Lunch!

My preschooler's personalized bento is packed in her Dr. Sears Nibble Tray:

My 6 year old, Sprout, wanted her lunch in her little sister's Yumbox, and 4 year old Birdie was happy to share. Both girls had cheddar & mozzarella cheese, carrots, red grapes, strawberries, apples & goldfish crackers. I used alphabet bento picks & Scrabble Cheez-it crackers to spell their names.

Sprout also had a treat of Sunbursts candy coated sunflower seeds. Yummy :)

They'll both be excited about the new Framboise Pink Yumbox - coming soon!

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Some stuff used to make these lunches:

Creepy crawly, ghoulish & cute... lunch is a hoot!

It's Hallowe'en Blog Hop time...  

For my Bella, I packed a spooky spider Laptop Lunches bento:

She has a spider turkey & cheese on honey wheat sandwich, sitting atop spider graham crackers. The spider's legs are NatureBox Sesame Stix, stuck on with honey. Autumn Royal grapes fill a spider silicone cup surrounded with black & orange caramel corn. She also has grape & Sunburst tomatoes, and a pumpkin & carrot muffin frosted with a spiderweb. 

I also tucked a Hallowe'en Lunchbox Love note in with each kidlet's lunch. 

Beanstalk got a ghoulish Sistema Lunch Cube:

In one side, he has a peanut butter sandwich mummy on a stick & zombie grave, and a string cheese stick through an eyeball cupcake ring. 

In the other side I packed red, black & green grapes, a checkered apple wedge, a pumpkin carrot muffin, and a cup of sweet treats - chocolate covered pretzel, frosted cookies, and chocolate eyeball. I decorated the muffin with some sugar bones arranged like a skeleton torso, but they kind of spread when the muffin rose - I forgot it would do that :)

I don't normally put this many sweets in their lunches, but IS almost Hallowe'en ... and we had fun filling a basket of candy & other treats in Popsies Specialty Sweet Shoppe last week :)

My little kindergartner Sprout has a field trip to the pumpkin patch coming up, so I packed her a pumpkin yubo bento:

In the sandwich box she has a kind of lame Jack O'Lantern peanut butter sandwich, grapes on scarecrow & pumpkin picks, cheddar cheese pumpkins in a pie slice silicone cup (see what I did there?) and a pumpkin salt water taffy. She also has carrots, a carrot pumpkin muffin with a fruit leather face, and a Jack O'Lantern chocolate. 

Birdie had lunch at home,  and asked for a "grilled cheese sandwich not baked"- which means just a cheese sandwich :) Since I didn't need to make it packable, I made this fun owl. The little detail pieces might not survive the ride in a preschooler's lunchbox, but they're just fine served on a plate :)

I made a few small tweaks - like using a tulip cutter & cheese to make feet - but the basic idea for this sandwich, and the instructions for making it, came from Cute Food For Kids. Whooooo wouldn't love this cute owl for lunch?

Now, do you like your pumpkins creepy or cute? 
Click one to jump to the next blog in the hop!

or

It doesn't really matter which - they'll both take you to Veggie-Bento :)
As for whether her lunch is creepy or cute, you'll just have to click to find out!

Hallowe'en Lunches! Starring Jack Skellington :)

A buncha Hallowe'en lunches for my little goblins to gobble! Some are from today, some are from yesterday. Some had mishaps... All are fun!

For my Jack the Beanstalk, a spooky LunchBot starring Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas.  I'm not totally happy with how he came out, I made his mouth a little too high - but Beanstalk was impressed with it - and there are no do-overs!

Besides the Pumpkin King peanut butter sandwiches (there are 2, stacked, but the bottom one is just a circle) he has some grapes, a container of yogurt raisins (Birdie decided they are baby ghosts), a Jack O'Lantern Jello Jiggler made with orange Jello in silicone muffin cup, half a Granny Smith apple stuck with a bat party pick, and a saltwater taffy ghost.

Pickle also got a Jack Skellington peanut butter sandwich:

I was happier with this one, his mouth is placed better. He's also a triple decker sandwich, since Pickle has been coming home hungry lately. Time for bigger lunches for him. And when I went to put the lid on the sandwich box I decided to add the eye cut-outs back in to keep the peanut butter from sticking to the lid. So here's version 2:

Sprout has a Hallowe'eny yubo, with a Jack O'Lantern Jiggler, some carrots, apple wedges, yogurt with sprinkles, triscuits, a string cheese, and a Clifford apple juice box. We don't usually do juice boxes - we have reusable bottles and I try to pack as waste-free as possible - but her kindergarten class mascot is Clifford so I bought her a package of Hansen's juice boxes for fun.

We had a bit of a mishap with the yubo. It was a little overstuffed. The juice box and the apple cup just wouldn't stay squashed in that space, especially after I put the lid on the apples - and while getting out of the car, the yubo lid popped off and everything spilled out. Fortunately, all the individual container lids stayed on and all was well - I just had to take the juice box out - but a word to the wise:  Don't overstuff the yubo!

Oh and while I am posting about mishaps... 

This is Sprout's yubo from yesterday. She had a Jack O'Lantern Jiggler, satsuma orange, yogurt with Halloween sprinkles, hard-cooked egg ghost (with candy eyes) and a zombie grave peanut butter sandwich.

I love the 3-D zombie hand cupcake pick reaching up from the sandwich grave!  I had to squash it in quite a bit more to get the lid on the container though, because there is another sandwich underneath - that she didn't eat anyways. I tend to overpack :)

But the uneaten sandwich isn't the mishap. It's the ghost egg!  I was so pleased with the eggs - I made flat round hard-cooked eggs by squishing 2 peeled ones into a round lidded container while still warm. When they cooled they were like little hockey pucks :) That part worked fine... But the sugar eyes (stuck on with a dab of honey)  dissolved! So Sprout didn't eat her egg, she thought it looked gross, and I have to agree with her, yuck!

And here's one last lunch, this one only slightly Hallowe'eny...

It's Tuesday, Breakfast For Lunch day at school, and Bella was going to have the pancakes... until she saw the Jack O'Lantern Jell-O Jigglers the other sproutlets had in their lunches... so here is her quickety-quick no time to put any thought into it EasyLunchbox. Packed literally minutes before we ran out the door, but of course I still paused to take a picture ;)

She has carrots, a Jello Jiggler Jack O'Lantern, a Fiber One chewy granola bar, and under that, a mozzarella string cheese (which is why there are 2 reusable ice cubes in there - to keep the cheese slightly chilled). In the crescent silicone cup she has fat green grapes & cherry tomatoes.

Some stuff used for these lunches:

Linked to What's For Lunch Wednesday