Fall Picks!

Today's Fall-ish bento for Bella was a perfect example of what my friend Kendra refers to as "pickography" - that's when you make a bento with nothing really artistic done to the actual food, no carvings or shapes, just plain food, "where picks and cups and accessories do all the work."  You may know my friend as bloggess Ludicrous Mama of Biting The Hand That Feeds You (and if you don't, check out her blog).  Pick a theme, any theme... if she doesn't have a pick for it, they probably don't make one!

Bella's EasyLunchbox is packed with carrot sticks, turkey & cheddar wraps secured with Autumn Leaves cupcake picks, a tomato in a yellow flower cup, & grapes embellished with a flexible plastic Sunflower pick:

The picks I chose were inspired by the sunflowers I had seen in the courtyard of her school the week before. Sunflowers make me smile. I hope the simple touches to her lunch made her smile :)

Poolside Flip Flop Bento

We've been having some sweet summer weather here on Whidbey Island! I set up an inflatable pool on our deck for the sproutlets to cool off in. They love being in it so much, they don't even want to come in for lunch! So today I made bentos in their EasyLunchboxes & let them eat poolside :)

Our EasyLunchboxes are great for letting the sproutlets eat out in the back yard. If they don't want to stop playing, they can eat some, put the lid on & go for a swing, then come back & eat some more. If someone splashes from the pool or a hungry ant comes by, their lunch will be safe! And if they take their lunch with them to the swings, I don't have to worry about breakage :)

These flip-flop sandwiches are so cute, & were easy to make. I first saw them on this spa party platter, with strips of bell pepper for the straps, then my bento buddy Dina of What the Girls Are Having made some with red licorice strings, clever. I used the cut off crusts for mine :) I only decided to make them as I was putting the lunches together, and I didn't have those other things. Cheese would also have worked well, or fruit leather, but I had plenty of crusts!

Here's our hungry pool monster! He won't be pleased about all those veggies! Lucky for him, that's his big sister's bento, not his :)

Here's our pool monster's peanut butter sandwich flip-flops:

The pool monster is pleased :)

Bento Accessory Tip:  Little plastic bookmark clips can easily be turned into bento picks with a couple of snips with utility scissors. These ones were cupcake decorations meant to be bookmark souvenirs: 

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Stuff I used to make this bento:

 

 

One last slacker lunch & school's out for summer!

I had some great ideas for fun last day of school lunches... but they'll have to wait for next year! (Or maybe a summer picnic.) A busy week + impromptu trip out of town =  no trip to the grocery store for the necessary ingredients. Plus I was tired. So, slacker lunches for the sproutlets! I did stick a smiling, waving raccoon bento pick in Bella's & I think that was all it took to make it cute :)

It may be uninspired, but it's not such a bad little lunch... I think we have the food groups covered :) She's got a Clif bar, melon balls, cucumber slices, turkey pepperoni, & a fruit snack treat packet, packed in EasyLunchboxes.

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Stuff I used to pack this lunch:

   

World Autism Awareness Day

April is National Autism Awareness Month in the USA, & April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day.  We're well aware of autism in our family;  our Pickle is one of the 1 in 54 American boys on the autism spectrum.

If we were home with our sandwich cutters I'd make my little man a puzzle lunch, but we're in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada, for Spring Break, so it will have to wait. I do have all month to make an Autism Awareness Lunch :) And look at all these fun puzzle piece tools I could use when I do!

   

   

• Lunch Punch Match & Munch Puzzle Shape Sandwich Cutters
• 4 inch Puzzle Piece Cookie Cutter
• Puzzle Piece Bento Food Picks
• Puzzle Silicone Baking Mold
• Munchkin Puzzle Piece Silly Sandwich Cutter
• Puzzle Bites Crustless Sandwich Cutter

       

 

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to items I own, use & like! 

Almost Late Lunch

I've been out of the country for the past week so Sailor Boy's been making the sproutlets' lunches. I'm home now - and you might think I'd be excited to get back to packing for them, up early and making something cute, right? You'd be wrong, though - I slept in then scrambled around hurriedly throwing this & that in their lunchboxes :) Here's what Mia Bella got:

Lunch is a Clif bar, string cheese with a panda pick stuck in the top, gummy fruit snacks in a little panda cup, dried strawberries & cucumber slices also with panda bento picks in them, packed in EasyLunchboxes.

I had to dig around for the panda picks since I failed to put them away properly last time I used them! That left me too little time to do anything cute to, or snap pics of the other kidlets' lunches but no loss there, they were pretty lame :)

Today's lunch was packed with:

       

Pink Elephants Lunch Parade

A parade of pink elephant bento lunches went to school today :)

Bella's EasyLunchbox, below, contains dried strawberries, whole grain Fig Newtons, a tomato with a circus elephant pick, a cheese flatbread wrap, and cantaloupe chunks with an elephant fork:

OK so Pickle's elephant lunch isn't pink... but there are pink sprinkles on his yogurt! And orange ones too :) He has his usual peanut butter sandwiches, some string cheese with an elephant cupcake ring, & greek yogurt in a leak-proof lidded container that fits perfectly in that section!

Sprout's EasyLunchbox contains a stack of 3 elephant-stamped cheese sandwiches, fresh strawberries, carrots, & raisins with an elephant fork pick:

Cerise EasyLunchboxes Brights lids add a final touch of pink to the girls' bentos. Pickle got a Classic blue lid on his :)

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All the elephant bento accessories came from BentoUSA & are linked to in the descriptions :) Some other stuff I used for these lunches: 

Like the look of our EasyLunchboxes? Get some!

And some Mini Dippers, and the cookbook too!