Happy Little Lunches for the First Day of School

Hi Guys!  My biological children went back to school today and this is what my younger two took for lunch.  These ABC picks are my very favorite, like when I'm all done making lunches and I'm hanging up my Bento hat these are some of the picks I will save for making lunches for my grandchildren.  ;)  They make my heart sing with how cute they are and a new school year is always so full of hope.

This lunch was packed in EasyLunchbox containers and consists of:
pb&j on bread or tortilla
fruit leather cut with a mini apple cookie cutter
cantaloupe in a silicone cupcake liner
strawberries (with my favorite ABC pick!) in a silicone cupcake liner
mini saltines with a school bus cut from cheddar
mini M&M's treat in a rectangle silicone liner

So you've read past the first paragraph and I thank you for that!  I don't really know if anybody will read this!  Ha!  My intention with a blog is to share my love of creative lunches and also to raise money.  Did you catch that I said my "biological children" go back to school tomorrow?  I will have one Bonus Baby still at home with me who is with us through foster care.  Any money I raise through these links (and it's admittedly not a lot, it starts at around 4%) will be used to donate to my favorite foster care related charities.  Along the way I'll share my best tips, tell how I got interested in Bento, and probably do some fun giveaways too!  Things will be quick and simple around here.  I'm not techie and, let's be honest, I don't have time to learn new tricks right now.  But hopefully you'll enjoy learning how I do this and we can raise some money for some precious kiddos too.  :)

The school bus made of cheese has become a back-to-school week tradition for us.  Although I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to make cheese creations for Sister Bear.  She's in 4th grade now.  Our cutesy days may be numbered...I'll keep you posted.  Anyway, I made it using a cutter I bought about 3 or 4 years ago from a Bento supply website called allthingsforsale.com.  I'm still waiting to hear back from the company about posting affiliate links but I'll keep you posted on that too.


How to get started:
When my eldest son was in Kindy I made him "regular" lunches.  Sandwich, baggie, pretzels, baggie, apple, napkin, done.  For me it was drudgery.  I hated it; I dreaded it.  He was in Kindergarten; there were many, many years ahead and I thought there had to be a way to make this work for me.  At the time I had my Kindergartner, a three year old, and a one year old.  I am a creative person but at that point my hands (and heart!) were full and I had let all my other creative outlets fall to the wayside.  So there I was, with a task I needed to make more fun and at the same time craving creativity.  Pinterest had just come out and I think I saw a pin about Bento lunches and that was it for me.  So this blog is the result of 6 years of making fun lunches for 3 kids.  Some definite lunch fails and some happy little lunches along the way.


You can use any box for Bento, seriously, any food safe container will work.  So if you're just starting and you're not sure you want to invest $$$ or you only want to do fun lunches on special occasions just start with what you have or hit the Dollar Tree.  There are lunch containers out there for pretty much any price level and way of designing food but some of my favorites are these EasyLunchbox containers.  I bought my first set when my eldest was entering 1st grade 6 years ago...and they're still going strong.  I am decidedly NOT careful with them and they still work great.  Dishwasher safe (supposed to be top rack but I throw ours in the dishwasher wherever and they have come out just fine so far!)  They come four in a set with colorful lids.  When I first started the company was brand new and only offered one option for lid colors (Classic) but now you can choose Brights or Urban too!

 I like the ELB's because they just work well for how I want to use them.  I'm a simple mama, my kids eat sandwiches, I want enough room to have fun with food design but not too much room that it looks sparse or we end up wasting food.  (OMGosh, I once spent $$$ on fancy Bento bins for all three of my kids that were HUGE and had to be carried flat in front of you using both hands.  It.was.awful!)  But the ELB's are perfect for the lunch food I, and I'm guessing most American moms, want to feed their kids.  Also the price is amazing!  You can get a set of four with lids for around $14!  Just be careful when ordering to make sure that you're buying from the real ELB company.  There are some fakes out there that aren't as good.  Just go ahead and purchase through my link.  ;)  The other cool part about this is that if you click my link and order these...or click it and search around and order ANYTHING on Amazon I (and by I, I mean kiddos in foster care!) will get the 4% on your entire purchase.  So thanks!  :)

Let me know what you think!  If there are any specific questions you have or topics you'd like me to cover I can do that too!  I probably won't update everyday or I might, who knows?!  But I appreciate you reading this far and I'm so excited to share my favorite cool Bento tips (not just stuff to buy on Amazon, I promise!) and tricks that I've picked up along the way.  I have to admit, I really do love creative lunches and the thought of putting it all "out there" like this sounds fun.  I hope you think so too!  Thanks for reading!

(There's probably a way to add a FB button but I don't know how to do that!)  Here's a link:
https://www.facebook.com/happylittlelunch/?skip_nax_wizard=true