Tagged: fruit

First Day of School Owl Lunches

First Day of School Owl | OneCraftyThing.Com

First Day of School Owl | OneCraftyThing.Com
This last Wednesday was the first day that I packed lunch for two. My kiddos are growing up and two are in elementary school now! *sniff* For the first day of school, I made wise little owls 🙂 You’ll see that one is packed in an EasyLunchbox and the other in a Lunch Bot… because one kid eats like an adult and the other… like a bird!

In today’s lunch:


Main  PB&J Sandwich with yogurt raisins/ pistachios. I used Ritz crackers for the eyes and M&Ms for the pupils (held to the sandwich with a dab of peanut butter). One cashew for a beak. The one for the big kiddo also has half of a granola bar and extra cashews for claws.
Sides Strawberries and grapes. The flowers are made out of wafer paper; I bought these in Italy and can’t find an inexpensive alternative here in the US 🙁
Also included but not pictured Water


Today, I used (please disable AdBlock to see what tools I used for this bento):

Girl Scout Daisies Watermelon

Watermelon Basket of Daisies | OneCraftyThing.com

This weekend my kindergartner kiddo (my second) became a Daisy. It was sweet to see her so excited and happy to see her friends and her new troop. The ceremony was a potluck and I promised to bring daisy themed fruit. I seriously considered just making a fruit arrangement but for the amount of people that were there, I figured I should try to merge that idea into a watermelon which served more people. This was the result 🙂

In this fruit bowl, I put in watermelon, pineapple and green grapes. I had a few extra red grapes from our weekly fruit so I used it for the center. I then carved the leaves around the middle. To garnish it a bit, I used green grapes at the bottom to sort of mimic leaves. I used toothpicks to attach the three bottom daisies to the watermelon and then used skewers to raise up the daisies in the back.


In this carving, I used:

Ocean Friends Bento

Ocean Friends Bento | OneCraftyThing.com

A leftover day! My kiddos love love love lobster. So once in a while, I buy wild rock lobster and make lobster rolls/lobster and butter pasta for dinner. It’s great for everyone because those who don’t want pasta eat it on a bun and those who love pasta can have it mixed in their noodles. Win-win! (And that’s a sort of rarity at my house, that I don’t have one or another kiddo complaining about dinner). My eldest kiddo begged for a lobster roll lunch so I made her an ocean friends bento today. I think the picks really help with this one as I’m not sure my whale-bun translated very well this time. Oh well, bet it’s delish for lunch.

As for the OmieBox performance, it performed well last time and served its purpose. I now send it in a bag, though, because my kiddo needs the water bottle. A small fork did fit in the container though!


Main  Rock lobster sauteed in butter and garlic. Served warm. The roll is supposed to be the head of the whale (with blueberry eyes) and the tail is sticking out of the lobster.
Sides Blueberries, red grapes and the brown things on the top left are longan fruit, which is a little bit like lychee but more delicate. My kiddos love those too!


Today, I used:

Tropical End of Summer Watermelon

For the end of the summer, some good friends threw a potluck pool party. I’m a potluck one-trick-pony by this point and decided to take advantage of the possibly last of the good watermelons of the summer. I wanted something slightly summer themed and found a great image of a pineapple parrot on the web. A MUST DO! So here it is, an end-of-summer, tropical themed fruit plate.

First, an up-close of my favorite part, the parrot!
Tropical Parrot Fruit Salad with Tutorial | OneCraftyThing.com

As you can see, it’s made from the top of a pineapple. This is how I did it:

  1. Cut the top of the pineapple off the body. I cut about 4 inches down to be conservative in allowing myself enough room to make a head.
  2. Carve away the pineapple into a dome. Remember, this is the parrot’s head, so I made it slightly oblong so that it flowed into the beak.
  3. Using kitchen shears, cut off all the leaves closest to the head. Try to cut some long because we will be using those later for the wings.
  4. Carve a small carrot into a beak-like shape. I used a curved carving knife. Remember that parrots have hooked beaks so try to make sure you curve the beak. I also added a bottom beak from a small piece of carrot.
  5. Attach the carrot with a half of a toothpick (or if you have 2 pieces, two halves of a toothpick). I put the pointy part into the carrot and the blunt part into the watermelon.
  6. Place the long pieces of the cut leaves in the position of wings. I cut them so there was a small, medium, and long one. To place them I simply tucked them in between the cut pieces.
  7. I was going to use blueberries originally for the eyes, but they were huge. I used candy eyes. I made a little cuts into the pineapple for eye sockets. Careful if you use candy; they don’t do well in wet places (the black middle could run) so be careful when you place them. They held up throughout the party though, until my kiddos ate them 😉
  8. Place the parrot on the watermelon bowl with two toothpicks.

Here is the fruit salad with bowl; I used watermelon (balled), strawberries, red grapes, and green grapes. I used soem of the green grapes too, to look like leaves around the watermelon bowl.

Tropical Parrot Fruit Salad with Tutorial | OneCraftyThing.com


For this fruit salad I used:

The First Day of Third Grade Bento

Third Grade Puppy Lunch | OneCraftyThing.com

It’s the first day of third grade! I have to admit, it snuck up on me. We went abroad this summer and we’re still jetlagged so really, I feel like this minute it’s 3 in the morning. But alas, the kids are in school and the bigger kiddo is in third grade. CRAZY. I wanted to remind her that she has someone fun waiting for her at home, so I did a dog lunch for her today. We just got a puppy and the kids are insanely excited about her. So here’s to another year of bentos!


Main PB&J puppy shaped with with circle cutters and triangles for ears. The brown stuff is Nutella; the eyes are Wilton large eyes. The nose is a blueberry.
Sides Blueberries and a 3rd made out of cheddar. A chocolate chip protein bar I shaped into a dog bone.
Also included but not pictured Applesauce and water.


Today, I used:

4th of July Eagle Watermelon

Fourth of July Watermelon Eagle | OneCraftyThing.com

Yep, I know it’s the fifth. But better late than never.

Coming up with themes for already well-themed holidays is challenging. For the fourth, it’s the flag, the fireworks, etc. This year, I worked on the eagle. It’s pretty straight forward carve (using a paring knife and a v-shaped instrument)  except that I used baby carrots to give his beak and feet some depth. The stars were a last minute addition, but I think it makes it more patriotic looking, right? For fruit, we got as close to red, white, and blue as possible with watermelon, strawberries, green grapes and blueberries. The back half of the carve was a bowl shape to hols more fruit. It was fun to eat it at our friends’ yearly 4th of July party. Of course, the first thing to go were the stars.

Hope you had a safe and fun fourth this year!

For this watermelon, I used


Dolphins and Waves Fruit Bowl

Dolphins and Waves Watermelon Fruit Bowl | OneCraftyThing.com

 

 

Ahhh watermelon season is back. And this particular one was delicious! For a picnic in the park, I brought this fruity dish… a watermelon ocean and banana dolphins. All it had in it was green grapes, strawberries, watermelon, and of course, bananas. The banana dolphin idea is certainly not mine as it has spread over the internet like wildfire, but I’ve always wanted to try to do it because it was such a brilliant thought that I wish I could give credit to the originator (but I have no idea who that person is). Anyhow, the kiddos loved them and I thought they were particularly cute — it helps too that it was delish 🙂

For this watermelon, I didn’t use anything in particular besides some carving and regular kitchen knives. I did add the black sprinkle for the eyes, though, since they looked much more uniform than carving the eyes.

A Gradient of Fruity Flowers

A Gradient of Fruity Flowers | OneCraftyThing.com

With this being Teacher Appreciation week, as always I was stumped as to what to get for the teachers. I really like gift cards generally but sometimes I feel like it feels like a last-minute gift. So I wanted to show my thanks to our preschool teachers by making them an edible flower arrangement. You probably all heard me complain about how much edible arrangements cost, so I took it into my own hands and came up with a bouquet of watermelons, cantaloupes, and pineapple with blueberry metals and green grapes stems. Super simple as always, just by using an inexpensive glass vase, one cookie cutter, and some wooden skewers. The twist this time was that I added the melons so that the arrangement was a gradient of colors for a pretty burst of colors. To create the base of the flowers in the vase, I added blueberries to the bottom and grapes on top of those. The fluted neck of the vase held the flowers in place beautifully.
To finish the gift, I added a hand-lettered card not pictured here. I really hope the teachers like the treat!

A Witchy Watermelon

A Watermelon Witch | OneCraftyThing.com

A fun kid’s Halloween party potluck inspired a full-on search for a non-scary watermelon carving for inspiration. I found one design of a witch throwing up fruit salad and it was a fun nod to a puking pumpkin designs I’ve seen, so I did my little spin on it. This time of the year, I can never find large watermelon. Costco, instead, had two little soccer-ball sized ones. I had to improvise a bit with the design by using a cupcake stand to lift up the watermelon from the rest of the fruit salad (so she didn’t get buried) and I had to use a witch hat headband instead of a regular witch hat.

Last week was absolute murder as far as time, so she isn’t as detailed as I would like. I’m going to try this one again, I think.

How I made this watermelon: She was super quick!

  1. First, I made her sit flat by slicing off a piece of the bottom. I also angled that cut a bit so she would look like her head was a tad bit tilted toward the salad.
  2. I cut out a hole for the mouth. I scooped out the watermelon through both openings. I usually use a watermelon baller for nice watermelon presentation but she’s supposed to be throwing up, right? So chunks 🙂 I actually used both watermelons as one was not enough.
  3. I carved some eye whites (sclera) and split a large grape in two and made them the eyes. The pupils were just a tiny bit of edible dough I have and the highlights on the eyes were ghost sprinkles. The eyes are attached with toothpicks.
  4. The nose was half of the slice I took off the bottom. I stuck it on with a toothpick.
  5. Carved the eyebrows and tinted them a bit with brown edible marker so we can see it easier.
  6. I put a mini witch hat fascinator on her because an adult’s witch hat was waaaay too big. I made this one myself, but there are tons of them for sale now-a-days.

Today I used:

Football Kick-Off Watermelon

Football Kick Off Watermelon | OneCraftyThing.com

I want to start this post with a disclaimer: I know NOTHING about football. All I know is that I was invited to some kind of football party last Sunday and I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on. I did know it wasn’t Superbowl (where last year I did a helmet watermelon!), but that it was something important. Turns out it was the beginning of football season. For me, that means one thing: a chance to do a football-themed watermelon 🙂 And this one is SUPER simple; I’m sure anyone could do it. I basically just cut the water in half, length-wise. With the extra rind, I cut out a football shape and carved some lines to make it look like a football. The goal posts are 3 paper straws that were hot-glued together and then stuck into the opposite sides of the rind. That’s all! I added grapes, blueberries, cantaloupe, and watermelon, of course. It was a cute centerpiece for a laid-back party. I do think it could possibly do for Superbowl too!


What I used: