Category: Bento

December 16, 2014

An Advent Bento: 9 Days until Christmas!

Time for another installment of the Advent bentos! After yesterday’s debacle and not getting it together (lunch money was given), I had a little more time today to make an Advent lunch. It was simple, quick but I think the kiddo will like it, given that she’s been asking for a special treat in her lunch for a bit now.

And today’s advent surprise? Mini candy canes!

Main PB&Jam triple stacked tree with blue sixlets for ornaments and (a bit hard to see) snowflakes.
Sides A mandarin orange on the bottom and a carved apple on top with large non-pareils for snowflake-y accents and two mini candy canes.
Also included but not pictured Graham crackers and yogurt

Today I used:

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December 10, 2014

A Nutcracker Bento

This week we did some fun mom-kiddo bonding and I took the eldest kiddo to a truly beautiful production of the Nutcracker ballet. It was a Girl Scout event and it was really fun. She loved it, I loved that she loved it, and it spawned a really fun bento this week.

In this lunch:

Main Triple decker PB&J. For the red coat and a black hat and hair, a thin layer of edible molding dough, on top of the sandwich. A star sprinkle for a button and festive holly sprinkles adorn his hat. A graham cracker for the “fireplace” (with drawn-on flames) and a hanging cupcake topper stocking.
Sides Green grapes and a strawberry Mouse King with candy eyes (lids drawn on with edible marker) and almond ears, along with a licorice whip tail and sprinkle nose.
Also included but not pictured Yogurt, graham cracker bunnies

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December 8, 2014

Advent Bento: 17 Days until Christmas!

Time for another installment of the Advent bentos! I got a tell you the truth, Mondays are hard lunch days for us. I usually buy groceries during the week, so by Monday, I’m usually at the end of the loaf of bread, or using up fruit before it goes bad, or making it a snacky lunch. Today was a day for snacky lunch! A do-it-yourself Lunchable, as it were… but still healthy and fun 🙂

And today’s advent surprise? A dulce de leche owl that we got from our Girl Scout fall nut sales 🙂

Advent Bento | OneCraftyThing.com

Main Round butter crackers, cheddar cheese cut into stars, little rounds of turkey deli meat.
Sides A Clementine orange and a surprise dulce de leche owl (from the Girl Scouts!)
Also included but not pictured green grapes and yogurt

Today I used:

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December 1, 2014

Advent Bento for the Holidays

After doing bento for a few years, it’s hard to come up with new themes every year, especially for the holidays. There are some things that MUST be done for certain holidays: Santas, trees, reindeer, etc. are a must for Christmas (since we celebrate it), turkeys are for thanksgiving, clovers are for St.Patrick’s day… And in a way, it’s instant theme, but on the other hand a bit limiting. Well, every year I try to think of a new Advent activity for the kiddos, and I thought it would be a good idea to bring it into lunch 🙂 So this year I’m doing advents bentos! I’m not going to be doing special bento every day, but I had the idea to do one every Monday, and for the lunches in between, I would give the kiddo one snack that would equal the number of days until Christmas. So for example, tomorrow she might get 23 goldfish crackers… I’ll send her a little note to count them!

But anyhow, for today, there are 24 days until Christmas and I thought it would be fun to have a little area with a surprise. So I just cut out a little piece of paper and taped it on top of the small section of our Easy Lunchbox. I had some extra Santa hat stickers from a kid craft we did, so I just stuck it on top to be festive. Can you tell what the surprise was? A little hard to tell, but I found some small coal-shaped pieces of chocolate for fun. I was going to put in a different treat, but honestly, the kiddos were acting up this morning and being difficult (it’s hard for everybody to get back into the swing of things after a week-long vacation), so I thought this was appropriate 😉

Main PB&J sandwich stamped and numbered cutouts. The holly decoration are just sprinkles.
Sides A mandarin orange and a half arranged like a wreath and coal chocolate pieces.
Also included but not pictured I thought this lunch was kind of light, so I included some bunny cheddar crackers, a mango fruit pouch and yogurt.

Today I used:

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November 27, 2014

Happy Turkey Day! Bento

Since there is no school this week, I made this bento at the end of last week. I meant for it to look like the turkey had a plaque behind him saying “Thanks” but it turned out that it ended up looking like a huge turkey afro, which, in retrospect, is really funny. That’s what happens when you’re dead set on using certain elements (the turkey is made out of pumpkin bread with all kinds of veggies in it) and end up with something that wasn’t quite in the plans.

In today’s lunch:

Main Turkey is made with pumpkin bread (loaded with zucchini, carrots, and squash). I baked the bread in a special round pan for cake pops, but they only came up as half-spheres. His beak is a cashew and his waddle is a craisin. His eyes are candy eyes and his tail is made from candy corn that I stuck into a slit in the side of the body (in retrospect, some peanut butter would’ve been good to secure the tail). Turkey afro is just a PB&J sandwich 🙂
Sides Cutie orange flower with a grape for the center. Trail mix with a mellowcreme marshmallow
Also included but not pictured Yogurt

Today I used:

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November 18, 2014

Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman Bento

If you have elementary school kiddos and PBS on TV, you have definitely seen Ruff Ruffman’s Fetch! It’s a great show that I’m sad ended a few years back. It encourages learning and discovery and is an all around good show. My kiddo’s favorite, in fact! I’ve been asked for a Ruff Ruffman bento now for aaaages and today, I got it together! And for those of you who have no idea who Ruff is, here’s a clip on how a search engine works:

Anyhow, here are the details of today’s bento:

Main PB&J Ruff with a blueberry nose. Ruff’s fur is peanut butter on the top layer of the sandwich and the stomach part is just another piece of bread. For the eyes I used large Wilton eyes (backward, so that I could customize the pupil size and add the rim of his glasses around his eyes) and for his eyebrows and mouth, a piece of black licorice.
Sides Fresh blueberries and trail mix with a graham cracker dog house. I drew the “door” on with an orange edible marker.
Also included but not pictured Yogurt

Today I used:
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November 14, 2014

Octopus, Octopus, lurking in the water bento

A friend of mine gave cookie cutters as a party favor for her son’s birthday and this awesome octopus was one of them. It’s adorable! So I had to make a lunch out of it. It’s not the first time I’ve done an under-the-sea type of lunch (and most likely not the last!) but it was simple and easy to do with a few little details to make it fun. I made a simple tutorial for the squid here, so that you too can recreate this lunch!

Main PB&J Octopus. His tentacle-suckers were little pieces of cereal that I stuck in between the sandwich. It was tasty and it gave a plain cookie-cutter sandwich some nice detail, along with the candy eyes. I just broke the little cereals in two to get such even suckers.
Sides Goldfish crackers (naturally) and strawberry squid (tute here) on black grapes. The eye on the squid was just a little piece of bread on which I colored an eye with an edible marker.
Also included but not pictured Yogurt

For this lunch, I used:

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October 29, 2014

Monsters of Halloween Bentos!

Today, I’m part of the Bento Bloggers and Friends Hallowe’en Hop! Halloween is an awesome time for bento makers because of all the fun themes that arise from the season! And today is also special because it’s a two-fer 😉 I made one for my older kiddo to take to school and one for my preschool kiddo to eat at home, because she has very sweetly been asking for “pretty” lunches like her sister. She wants in on the fun too 🙂

The first one is for the older kiddo!

In the bento above:

Main Really, the “main” is three PB&J mini sandwiches shaped like bats! I used these for Halloween last year but love them so much that I brought them back… also, it goes with the “vampire” theme of one of the sides.
Sides Pomegranate seeds for a bloody vampire grin :), green grapes, and a 1/2 pear Frankenstein. His hair and eyebrows are an avocado skin that was well cleaned out (I had avocado for lunch yesterday and kept the peel) and his eyes are pre-made candy eyes. Teeth are just some mandarin skins (I had mandarins, too) I tucked into his mouth. His “bolts” on either side are a bit hard to see but they are also green grapes.
Also Included but not Pictured Yogurt

And for the preschooler, I made a slightly younger version of the above, but with some snacky changes that she would like. This was lunch:

Main 2 bone-shaped peanut butter sandwiches (no jam).
Sides A mandarin (with a jack-o’lantern face drawn on), a 1/2 of a pear Frankenstein (with smaller eyes and avocado hair), a banana ghost with chocolate chip eyes/mouth, six baby carrot sticks.

For more amazing Hallowe’en lunches, continue on to the next awesome bento blog on our hop! Just click on the image below!

Today, I used:

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October 22, 2014

Plants vs Zombies Bento

This week’s bento is sort of following the Halloween theme of the month, but mostly just the fun theme. Plants vs Zombies! When this came out I played it all the time 🙂 and now the kiddo plays it every so often, too. I’ve been wanting to do a zombie lunch for a bit and had a bit of a debate of whether it should be realistic zombies or more cartoon zombies. These guys won! I’m glad because it was one of my more fun lunches to make.

Main PB & strawberry jam double stack sandwich– the bottom two layers are the shape of the whole head and the top layer has the mouth cut out so that I could place the teeth (cut freehand, but outlined first with an edible pen so I knew where to cut). Inside the mouth, I put strawberry jam for gums and pieces of bread cut into teeth shapes. The green stuff on top is just peanut butter with a teensy bit of green and a little black. The eyes are made from gum paste (I’m experimenting with different materials to see which holds up best — gum paste dries pretty hard) and are dotted with black edible marker. The tiny pieces of black hair and the nose holes are cut pieces of black licorice whips.
Sides Nuts with eyes (I used pre-made ones from Wilton)! (like the walnuts in the game!) and a mandarin(with drawn on sharpie face) in a flower cup.
Included but not Pictured Yogurt

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October 21, 2014

This Year’s Halloween Costume

Ah to be seven and to have a limitless imagination! This year, my silliest kiddo, my eldest, has decided that she would be (among all the princesses and kitties) a washing machine for Halloween. Yep. A washing machine. It was a wonderful choice and I made her costume from a box and a lot of tape (among other things). But for lunch I made her this silly thing. It’s not my most impressive lunch but it was a fun inside joke, as her school friends haven’t seen her costume yet. She giggled at the sight of it in the morning and I hope she had another giggle at lunch.

Main PB&J (double stacked) washing machine 🙂 I made a small hole in the middle and used the round bread for the head. Crust for hair, a little bit of nori for her smile and candy eyes. Inside the washing machine, the “laundry” made of non-pareils.
Sides Green grapes and cantaloupe, as well as a mandarin
Included but not Pictured Yogurt

For this lunch I used:

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