Dapper Dog and Lovebox Love Notes Giveaway

I wish I could take credit for this lunch but ever since my friend Jenn (over at Bento for Kidlet) made her son a cute corn dog man, I've been dying to recreate it.  So, since we are doing a "no sandwich" week and trying out lots other lunch options, it seemed like a great time to do it!

• Morning Star Farms Veggie Corn Dog (seriously, if you haven't tried them, you should.  They are so good!), decorated with a top hat cupcake topper, a bow tie pick, icing eyes and a cucumber mouth.  Served with ketchup and mustard for dipping.
• Carrots and celery with ranch
• Grapes with "SMILE" letter picks
• 2 Thin Mints
• Lunchbox Love Note

Now for the super exciting part...FREE STUFF!!!   I had been eyeing Lunchbox Love notes from Say Please for quite some time but it took me awhile to bite the bullet to buy some because, quite frankly, I figured I can write little love notes to my girls.  However, I finally broke down and bought some and I am SO glad that I did.  Not only are they adorable, they are so sweet and fun!  Each card has a positive note on one side and then a interesting piece of trivia on the other.   As I mentioned a few days ago, my youngest daughter even asked me to pack her one on a day she was buying the school's lunch!   My daughters said that their classmates ask what the "Did You Know" says before they even get a chance to read it!


Say Please has graciously offer to send one of my lucky readers some Lunchbox Love Notes of their own!  Just enter below for your chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fine Print:  The giveaway will end on Wednesday, March 6th.   The winner will have 48 hours to claim their prize.   If I do not hear from the winner within that time, I will select a new winner.   The winner must currently "like" Lunchbox Love Notes and Bento-logy on Facebook in order to win.

Here are some of the items, or similar items, I used when creating this lunch:

Click on the BentoUSA ad on the right side of my blog to find the bow tie pick, sauce cup and silicone cup.

Pot Sticker Bento

As I mentioned earlier, the girls are getting a little burned out on sandwiches so we are thinking outside the bento box.   They LOVE pot stickers but we weren't sure how they would be at room temperature or slightly chilled.   So, we did a test run at home and they both said they were good.  So, hopefully we found another "non sandwich" lunch option!

 

• Pot stickers with dipping sauce
• Strawberries with panda picks
• Edamame on flower picks
• Vanilla yogurt with blueberries

I packed this lunch in the Sassy box and got the flower and panda picks from BentoUSA (see the ad/link to the right) 

Springtime Salad

My daughters informed me they are getting a little tired of sandwiches.  (I don't blame them!) So, we are going to try to mix things up a bit by packing some non-sandwich lunches throughout the week.    Today, they are both having salads.

• Salad made with lettuce, spinach, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers, carrots and a hard boiled egg.  Packed with Italian dressing.
• Raspberries/blueberry flowers
• Pretzel thins
• Hershey Kisses

Here are some of the items I used when creating this lunch:

I Love You To Pieces

My friend Cristi from BentOnBetterLunches sent me this adorable puzzle cookie cutter and I couldn't wait to use it!  Thank you Cristi!

• Puzzle sandwich with cheddar letters to spell out "LOVE"
• Lettuce and tomato (to put on the sandwich)
• Kiwi hearts with blueberries
• Carrots and broccoli with ranch
• Peanut Butter/Pretzel chocolate balls

All packed in our PlanetBox lunch box with a LunchBox Love note.  I actually have a cute story to share about the LunchBox Love Notes... I have recently been putting LunchBox Love notes in my daughters' lunches (I just never remember to include them in the picture!). Today, my younger daughter was buying the school's lunch. She said "Does that mean I don't get a love note?!" So, she asked me to pack her one in her snack instead...Which I did, of course!!  I LOVE this product.  What an adorable way to make your little one feel extra special and remind them how much they are loved during their school day.  Plus, the trivia on the pack of each card is great for lunch table conversation starters!

Stay tuned...I'll be having a LunchBox Love giveaway soon!!

Don't Be Crabby!

We had some mini croissants in the house this week.  I remembered seeing this adorable lunch and thought I'd make my own version of the little crustacean.

• Turkey and Cheddar with honey mustard on a mini croissant.  I used sugar snap peas for his legs, cheddar for his claws and mouth and icing eyes.
• Red grapes with a crab cupcake pick
• Cucumber slices
 
Here are some of the products I used when creating this lunch:
 

Snow, Snow, Snow! (GO AWAY!)

I don't know about you, but I am ready for spring!!  But, based on this week, you sure wouldn't know it's only supposedly a few weeks away! I thought making a snowflake themed lunch might help me embrace the weather...it didn't ;)  But, hopefully the lunch was yummy anyway!

• Snowflake-shaped sandwich decorated with a snowflake pick.  (If you look very closely, you can see I stamped a smaller snowflake in the center of the sandwich.  But, it didn't give it the "pop" I was looking for (I think because the bread was too dense) so I added a cupcake pick too.)
• Peas
• Kiwi and strawberry snowflakes with a snowflake cupcake pick
• Cheddar snowflake
• Brownie snowflake with snowflake sprinkles

Here are some of the products, or similar products, I used when creating this lunch:

Team Effort!

Sorry I have been Missing In Action this week! I've been packing lunches but bad about posting them!!

On Monday, the girls were home from school for the holiday so lunch was a team effort. They used our new Snow White cookie cutters from Williams Sonoma and food safe markers to create their sandwiches while I made the rest of their lunch. Here is what we came up with:

• 2 Snow White-shaped sandwiches (stacked)
• Apple slices
• Broccoli and carrots with ranch and an apple cupcake pick
• Hershey Kisses

Here are some of the items I used when creating this lunch:

Click on the BentoUSA ad to the right side of my blog to find the sauce cups.

Pizza Pockets

I used my new heart shaped pie press again and to make these pepperoni pizza pockets.  YUM!

• Pepperoni and cheese pizza pocket with marinara sauce for dipping
• Cucumber and tomato slices
• Blueberries with kiwi hearts

Here is a step-by-step explanation on how I created the pizza pockets.

The product list is pretty short today!  Here are the tools I used when creating today's lunch:

 

Mardi Gras Bento

We're celebrating Mardi Gras...bento style!

 

• Crown shaped sandwich decorated with purple, yellow and green jumbo sprinkles
• Celery, orange peppers and purple cauliflower with ranch
• Red grapes
• Hershey Kisses

Here are some of the products that I used when creating this lunch:

 

Pie Press Sandwich

We are in the home stretch of Valentine's Day and I have to admit, I think I started making Valentine's Day themed lunches a bit to early this year because after almost a month, I'm running out of ideas!!  We will see what this week holds.  

Anyway, while at Target, I spotted an adorable heart shaped pie press.  Some of my bento friends have been using mini heart presses but I hadn't seen the larger one before.  This press was the side of the full piece of bread.  Actually, it was a little larger than the bread.  But, I just rolled the bread out slightly with a rolling pin in order to make it large enough to fit. 

In most case, I have at least 2 of each bento box so both my girls get pretty much the same lunch.  However, we only have one Yubo (so far) and one PlanetBox.  So, when I pack in them, their lunches vary slightly. 

PlanetBox:

 

• Turkey and cheese sandwich made using the heart shaped pie press and decorated with strawberry fruit leather hearts
• Raspberries
• Carrots with ranch
• Chips and Salsa
• 2 Hershey Kisses

Yubo:

• PB&J sandwich made using the heart shaped pie press and decorated with strawberry fruit leather heart
• Vanilla yogurt with raspberries
• Carrots with ranch
• Healthy chocolate muffin with "XOXO" sprinkles

Here are some of the products, or similar products, I used when creating these lunches:

Basketball Bento Breakfast

Yesterday, we were at the gym early to see my nephew play basketball.   We had to wake my youngest up in order to get there on time so I packed her a bento breakfast so she could eat it there.

• PB&J cut with my Pampered Chef Cut N Seal and decorated with food safe markers.  (I figured we have peanut butter toast all the time for breakfast so a PB&J is pretty much the same thing...just not toasted)
• Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Peach Yogurt
• (Her multi-vitamin is in the sauce container)

Here are some of the products, or similar products, I used when creating this bento breakfast:

Sweet and Simple

 

• 2 heart shaped sandwichs (stacked)
• Red grapes with heart picks
• Cheddar hearts
• Celery with ranch
• Hershey Kisses

In addition to the links above, here are some of the other products I used in this lunch:

 

 

You Make My Heart Sing

Now, I have the song "Wild Thing" stuck in my head...

• 2 Heart Singing sandwiches (stacked), decorated with icing eyes and cucumber mouth.  (It's totally driving me nuts that you can see a bit of turkey hanging over in this picture...but not enough to retake it.)
• Broccoli, carrot and cherry tomatoes with ranch
• Blackberries with a strawberry heart with music note picks
• Hershey Kisses

Here are some of the products, or similar products I used when creating this lunch:



Click on the BentoUSA ad to the right for the sauce cups and music note picks.

Love You!

Getting new bento boxes is fun. Heaven knows we didn't NEED any new boxes.  But, I have really been enjoying experimenting with our new PlanetBox.

 

• Sandwich decorated with a "Toast Stamper" and red food coloring.  I added lettuce and tomato separately so it won't make her sandwich soggy.  She can add them to her sandwich when it's time to eat.
• Purple cauliflower, broccoli, cucumber and carrot sticks (a.k.a. leftovers from our Super Bowl veggie tray) and ranch
• Watermelon hearts and blueberries
• Hershey Kisses
• Lunchbox Love Note (I have been recently including these with the girls' lunches but always forget to photograph them with the lunch.  They really get a kick out of getting a little note with their lunch.)

The Toast Stamper was from the Target Dollar Spot.   Here are some of the other items, or similar items, I used when creating this lunch:

 

 

It's the 100th Day of School

With Mr. Groundhog saying that spring is on it's way and the days slowly getting longer, I have to admit, I'm already dreaming about summer!   Today, is the girls' 100th day of school already!!   So, we made a lunch to celebrate :)

 

• 2 square shaped sandwiches (stacked...actually it's closer to 1 1/2 sandwiches because that's how much I could get out of the bread) decorated with provolone to say "100 Days"
• Carrots with ranch with a chalkboard cupcake pick
• Vanilla yogurt with strawberry "100"
• Homemade peppermint patty decorated with "100" using white chocolate

Here are some of the items, or similar items, I used when creating this lunch:

Go to BentoUSA via the ad to the right, to find the sauce cups and silicone cup that the carrots are in.