Add some Lunchbox Fun in One Easy Step

Lunch should be fun! It's already squeezed in between specials and recess, often way to short to eat and takes a backseat to hanging out with friends. BUT, a little goes a long way and with a few fun bento picks you can put a smile on your kid's face without having to spend any extra time on packing lunches. Just add a pick!

Our Easylunchbox is packed with some cute face picks and:

• cheese crackers
• peppers
• cucumbers
• 4 mini peanut butter tortillas
• and a cereal bar

This nearly ideantical Easylunchbox has one of our priced Disney picks (received from a friend) and:

• cheese crackers
• peppers
• cucumbers and
• a pepperoni and lettuce sandwich

And last but not least we have an Easylunchbox with more fun face picks and:

• cheese crackers
• apples and
• a chicken sandwich 

Things I used to make these lunches fun (contains affiliate links):

Fun Halloween Fruit Parfait {with Tutorial}

There is only one day left before Halloween and with Halloween the season of treats and goodies will begin. Since I love yogurt and chocolate I thought combining the two to make a delicious fruit parfait could be fun!

  

Halloween Fruit Parfait:
~ makes four 8 oz desserts

• 4 cups of Orange Vanilla yogurt
• 1 pack of Italian lady fingers
• 8 oz of sweet fresh or frozen sliced peaches
• 8 oz of mini dark chocolate chips as is or melted.

How to make them:

First layer lady fingers into glass.

Add Orange Vanilla yogurt - about 2 tablespoons.

Add three sliced peaches.

Add either chocolate chips or melted chocolate. If using melted chocolate only spread a thin layer on the peaches.

Repeat until your glass is full and end with a layer of yogurt and chocolate chips.

Enjoy!

Best if refrigerated for at least one hour to let flavors combine.

My entire family loves this dessert so I decided to make some to give away as well.

 And of course some for my kids’ lunch boxes.

Happy Halloween!

This post was originally posted in 2012 as a guest post. Since it has been deleted from the original blog I am reposting it on my own blog today.

5 Easy Steps to Making Lunchboxes More Fun

This post was previously published at Diana Rambles as part of the 4 great Bloggers, 4 great tips for the Back2School Bentoing series.

This post contains affiliate links.

Packing fun lunches is not as hard as you think and doesn't necessarily require a cabinet full of bento lunch supplies or artistic skills. With a few (and inexpensive) touches you can change your child's lunchbox into a fun lunch!

1) Cupcake decorations

In the picture above I added a reusable silicone straw and a cupcake decoration from the party store to dress up the lunch. My kids were thrilled to slurp their applesauce through the straw and with a quick cupcake decoration I made this simple lunch more exciting. And as you see the lunch came back completely eaten!

Same with this St. Patrick's Day lunch. I added three St. Patrick's Day themed cupcake rings from my local cake store and made this simple lunch festive and fun!

2) Silicone Cups

To add some color and fun I simply added a cute orange mini silicone cup to hold some Almonds and dressed up this simple Laptop Lunchbox.

Silicone cups can also serve as dividers and enable you to pack smaller portions and a larger variety of food which especially appeals to younger children and picky eaters.

3) Sandwich Cutters

This lunch was made more fun with a cute plane sandwich. It was made using a Lunch Punch Cutter. The cutter is easy to use (just press down and done) and removes the crust while making your kids sandwich exciting and fun!

These mini sandwiches were transformed with a sandwich stamp from All Things For Sale. No artistic skill required. But the outcome is an adorable and appealing lunch.

Another fun to use sandwich cutter is the CuteZCute animal sandwich cutter. It cuts the crust off (again, great for picky eaters) and you can choose between four different animal faces. Quick, easy and fun in no time at all.

4) A Lunchbox Note

Adding a fun Lunchbox Love note - no matter if homemade or similar to this store bought Lunchbox Love Card (joke edition) - sure will put a smile on your child's face and make lunch a little more special.

5) Food

But even if you don't have any of the tools above you can still make a cute lunch. This summer BLT lunch was simply made special by adding three Goldfish crackers and with two deli sandwich picks. Similar ones are available at the Dollar Store.

I hope I could show you a few tips and tricks on how to transform you child's lunchbox from drab to fab with a few simple steps. For more product ideas visit my bento basics page.

Here is what I used to make these lunches fun:

Star Sandwich Cutter BentoUSA Review

Do your kids love food on a stick? Mine do! They especially love sandwiches on a stick and I wanted to show you my favorite sandwich-on-a-stick maker. Drum roll please...

The SANDWICH on a STICK MAKER! Ours is star shaped but All Things For Sale also carries them in the form of a heart, a flower, a mini hexagon and a mini square!

This cutter is easy to use, easy to clean and simply perfect for quick sandwiches on a stick!

The cutter comes apart for easy cleaning and thanks to the plunger you can easily extract your made sandwich! This means , PBJ, jelly or nut butter sandwiches are no sticky messes!

Directions:

You need two slices of bread. One plain and one with the topping you would like.

Start with the plain bread. Cut out the shape. Leave the shape in the cutter and cut the bread with the topping next. Alternate until the cutter is full. Insert bento pick or toothpick. Press the sandwich gently out of the cutter and your shaped sandwich on a stick is ready!

My daughter wanted turkey and cheese sandwiches and we made some together.

Fun, right?

To illustrate the layers the sandwich maker produces we alternated bread, turkey and cheese.

 Perfect for little hands or...

...for the lunchbox!

The Sandwich on a stick Cutter is available at All Things For Sale here:

HOW TO PACK A BENTO BOX {with picture tutorial}

I have gotten lots of questions on HOW TO PACK A BENTO BOX so everything actually looks as cute as it was when you packed it. So I decided to show you how I packed my Moose bento box from the previous Literary Lunch post: Duck, Duck, Moose! Instructions on how to make the Moose sandwich can be found in that post as well!

1.) Get all your bento box ingredients ready.

• the sandwich (how-to instructions HERE) 
• fruit or vegetables, washed and ready to use
• crackers, nuts or any other smaller foods that can fill the empty spaces of the bento

2.) Place the sandwich first.

Since the sandwich was the biggest part of this lunch I placed the sandwich carefully first (the blueberries are glued on with peanut butter and the nose and nostrils are "glued' with peanut butter as well so I know those parts won't move (more DETAILS here).

3.) Place the rest of the lunch items to fill the spaces around the sandwich.

I started with the crackers on one side...

...and added the fruit to the other side to separate the two foods and prevent the crackers from getting soggy.

Then I filled the spaces between the antlers with almonds.

Lastly, I added a sprinkle smile to the sandwich and used honey to make them stick to the sandwich.

All you need now is a lid and a hungry child :)