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

Colourful Garden Lunches

Here are a couple of colourful EasyLunchboxes I packed for Sprout & Birdie. They were kind of inspired by the pretty floral print wax paper I used in them :)

 

Birdie likes elephants so I added an elephant bento pick to her leftover homemade pizza (that she helped make). Since she likes her pizza warmed up I lined that section with wax paper so the lunch helper could easily lift it all out to microwave it. In the smaller compartments she has grapes & cantaloupe embellished with silicone flower & butterfly bento picks. 

Sprout ate all her pizza so no leftovers for her. She has ham rolls secured with silicone butterfly & leaf picks, raspberries, cheddar cheese cut with a flower vegetable cutter,  pistachios, & a granola bar. The granola bars come 2 in a packet, but she typically only eats 1 so I wrapped it in a sheet of wax paper to keep it from getting soggy. The spork is for the berries.

Both bentos have colourful silicone cups - fluted, flowers, hearts, & crimped.

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Most of the bento accessories I used can be purchased at BentoUSA :)

Boo! It's A Silly Bagel Bento

The school age sproutlets are home today - it's parent/teacher conference time.  Ours were this morning, so now we have an extra long weekend ahead of us! Birdie still had preschool though, so I packed her a Sassy box lunch:

She asked for a bagel, and the one I pulled from the bag looked like it was sticking it's tongue out at me! So all it needed was some mozzarella string cheese slice eyes and a leaf pick to become a silly pumpkin :) The rest of the string cheese is cut in pieces and holding up alphabet picks, and a ghost pick flies up from some sweet Aurora apple slices.

Some stuff used for this bento:

 

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It's Your Anniversary, Charlie Brown!

Today marks the 63rd anniversary of the day Charles Schultz's Peanuts cartoon first appeared in print. Happy Birthday Peanuts Gang!

The sproutlets have Peanuts themed lunches packed in various PlanetBoxes:

Bella's PlanetBox Rover is packed with a Charlie Brown's t-shirt cheese sandwich, embellished with fruit leather, baby carrots, a babybel cheese carved with "Good Grief", cucumber slices with a Snooopy ring stuck in the top one, sunburst & grape tomatoes with a Charlie Brown pick, and apple wedges with peanut butter dip in a Snoopy cup.

Pickle is taking the PlanetBox Launch for the first time, packed with his usual, but today his peanut butter sandwiches have Snoopy & Woodstock drawn on them and his yogurt has yellow bird sprinkles! One of our autumn print Peanuts cloth napkins & a happy face spoon fit beside the Little Dipper of yogurt, and he has some Snoopy gummy fruit snacks for a treat.

Birdie's preschool lunch is packed in the PlanetBox Shuttle. She has a star shaped hard-cooked egg, baby carrots with a Snoopy ring, red grapes, a Snoopy cheese sandwich embellished with food markers, & in the little Woodstock cup,  rainbow chocolate covered sunflower seeds.

I'm no artist! I used these handy stencils to make Snoopy & Woodstock!

Other stuff used to make & pack these lunches:

 

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It's a Happy Birthday, Peanuts post party! My buddies Jenn of Bento for Kidlet  & Venia of Organized Bites also packed Peanuts birthday bentos today! 

My Bento Packing Secret!

I've often been asked variations of this question: "Doesn't everything just get all messed up / spill out / fall to the bottom when you turn the lunchbox sideways to carry it?" The answer is, not usually. Either I fill the container so there's no "wiggle room", or I use one of our handy-dandy multi-purpose reusable cloth napkins to fill the empty space :) I'll show you...

Here's one of my favourite fun bentos - I love the gummy worm in the apple-shaped sandwich. But it's not tightly packed, so yes, if I just turned it on it's side like this, the ABC biscuits  & the gummy worm probably would fall to the bottom and spoil the effect when Sprout opened her lunch...

No worries - I used her cloth napkin, folded over 3 times for the thickness I needed, to fill the space and keep things from shifting:

With the napkin holding everything in place, I can turn it sideways, the way it will be carried in the lunchbox and nothing moves. Well, not much. There was some minor shifting of the small plastic apple cups, but no spillage :) Yay!

So that's it, that's my bento packing secret! Nothing exciting, just a useful tip ;) 

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We have lots of cloth napkins in many colourful prints! They not only help keep the lunch trash-free, they make it more fun! Here are some of them:

from Beneficial Bento

from Red Poppy Crafts

Breakfast Bento for Birdie

Rise & shine, it's breakfast time! Birdie's having a summer morning bento of fresh cut strawberry flowers, carrot suns, cheese tulips, bunny grahams, apple blossoms, and yogurt with a garden of sweet sprinkles.

My friend Ludicrous Mama of Biting the Hand That Feeds You recently shared an article she had read, about a study that showed young children prefer many colours and choices on their plate. According to the study, "Children are most attracted to food plates with seven different items and six different colors." Birdie does love her Zak! Nibble Tray, which has 6 sections (9 with with the dip attachment!) Sprinkles are a fun way to add even more colour and kid appeal, and if you count them, she's got her 7 items in 6 colours :)

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Some stuff used to make this bento:

Left-behind Basic Bento Lunches

Here are some school lunches I never blogged for reasons:

Cheese quesadillas for my little monkey Mia Bella, with honey ham rolled & secured with monkey bento picks, & cucumber slices, some cut with a flower shaped cutter, packed in our Leaflet tight bento box.

Ham roll-ups again, this time secured with cocktail swords, a mini bagel, grape tomatoes, carrots & celery sticks, packed in EasyLunchboxes. There was probably cheese in the bagel, but I don't remember for sure...

Cherry tomatoes, concord grapes, celery & carrot sticks, topped with cheddar cheese stars. I remember this one because she was still hungry when she got home, it would have been better as a side bento with some soup!

A classic Beanstalk's choice bento from ages ago, all fruit & grain. Quaker Whole Hearts cereal, Clif KidZ bar, & Granny Smith apple wedges. 

And, another fruit & grain Lock & Lock lunch. Grapes, star crackers, mini bagel, & harlequin apple. My boy's a creature of habit...

These are all pretty basic bentos, nothing amazing about them, but I think they're good examples of how basic doesn't have to be boring - small touches like a couple of cute picks, a little detail with a paring knife, something cut with a cookie cutter, or even just arranging the food in a pattern, can make an ordinary lunch a little more appealing :)

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Some stuff I used for these lunches:

Iron Man Bento

Iron Man 3 is in theatres today, and Beanstalk is so looking forward to it! I packed him an Iron Man bento lunch in his Lego-style bento box.

I used the Iron Man cutter from our Marvel Comics Hero stamp cookie cutter set to make his peanut butter sandwich. Pretty decent detail for a cookie cutter on bread, it's actually recognizeable! Beanstalk was impressed :) 

Pretty cool bento box, wouldn't you say? Like a big Lego brick! 

This neat brick bento box from Bento USA has 2 tiers with plastic lids that seal them. One lid holds chopsticks and the other holds a little ice pack (included) - but I used the space to pack his Marvel superheroes cloth napkin & Lunchbox Love note. It's held together by an included elastic bento strap. 

Beanstalk's Iron Man lunch contains apple & cantaloupe wedges, chocolate covered raisins, & almonds (in the small red & yellow Lego-style boxes), the IronMan peanut butter sandwich, & a granola bar.

My friend Jenn & Karen made Iron Man lunch for their little guys too, check them out on their blogs, Bento for Kidlet & What's In our Lunch Bags?

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Some of the stuff used to make this lunch: