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.

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

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!

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:

 

 

Pickle's Pick & Sandwich Cutter Storage

Pickle has been making some of his lunches himself this summer! He's been enjoying taking as much time as he wants picking out a sandwich cutter, most of which are stored two deep in a drawer with a spice rack insert:

For this lunch, Pickle chose one of the dinosaur sandwich cutters, and put them in a Dyno Dips snack box, with some apple wedges:

Pickle didn't want to pour yogurt in the dinosaur dip well like I thought he would, he wanted to fill it with apple wedges. He's asked for apples several times now, but he has yet to actually eat them. Still, I don't like to say no when he asks for a food he doesn't usually eat - one day he may surprise me! This was not that day though - the apples went uneaten, and he asked for a Go-Gurt after finishing his peanut butter sandwiches. Ah well, maybe next time :)

Stuff Pickle used to make his lunch:

Spring Is Here!

Here's a Happy Spring bento full of blossoms & bugs! A ladybug egg, Spring Ritz crackers,  tomato,  Babybel cheese, raspberries in a dragonfly silicone cup, & Yoplait Go-Gurt, packed in EasyLunchboxes, with Lunchbox Love.

Aren't these flower & critter Spring egg molds cute? 

They come in sets of two - bunny & ladybug, & tulip & blossom.

 

I'm not super keen on how my eggs turned out though, so have sent my set on to a bento blogger friend.  I think the ladybug would have come out nicer if the egg was a little bigger - it didn't fill the mold enough to imprint much detail.

Lunch is cute anyways :)

I sort of made the dragonfly cup...

I cut it from a silicone cake mold pan like this one:

The molds come in many colours - mine was purple. Purple & yellow are such Spring-y colours - like the crocuses & daffodils on our lawn :)

Happy Spring!

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Some stuff I used to make this lunch: