Fun, Simple Bento Lunches

I doesn't take much to add a little Bento spin on someone's lunch to brighten their day.  I'm often asked what Bento supplies I would consider must haves. You can really go crazy with Bento supplies (I'm sure I tow that line) but honestly, if you have a couple interesting containers, a few fun sandwich cutters and some cute food picks, that's more than enough to create a smile.
 
For example, here's a container of Bing cherries. I've pitted them with my favorite cherry pitter from William Sonoma, placed them in a cute square container and stuck one simple green leave food pick in them. 
Voilà --Bento.

My little boy actually loves the leaf food picks.  Here's his lunch the first day of preschool.



The Mickey Mouse Bento sauce container holds ranch dressing for the carrots and the crackers are in a silicon baking cup/cupcake liner to keep them crisp.

How about these ripe Plouts (A plum and apricot hybrid sometimes called dinosaur eggs. These are super yummy by the way, so if you see them at the grocery store, pick some up.)

I've sliced these, lined them up in a rectangular container and then added sweet little critter food picks.

Or take this dill pickle. 

All I did was stick a little girl food pick into the end and now it's bursting with cuteness.


Here's a simple sandwich for you. This reminds me of a music box I had as a little girl.

I used a large glass to cut this sandwich into a circle.  I cut a doily in half (found on the cake decorating isle at the arts and craft store) to line the back side of a round container.  Sprinkled the sandwich with Wilton's edible star glitter and stuck a ballerina food pick in the sandwich.
 

This snack box is filled with healthy edamame, blueberries and Colby cheese. I've used silicon food dividers to keep everybody in their own spot. See how the animal Bento forks just beg little fingers to dig in? 
 

The easy lunch is a cheese sandwich with some fresh grapes.  Adorned with a hamster food divider and squirrel & acorn food picks, it becomes Bento.
 
I find most of my Bento supplies on ebay these days.  I try to buy multiple items from the same seller when possible to combine shipping. There are many online Bento suppliers though, so pick up a few Bento goodies, use your creativity and watch those little faces grin.

Here is a list of some of the Ebay Bento suppliers I've order from and had a good transaction.  Please understand that I do not know these sellers personally and I can only speak from my experience.

I've ordered a bunch from this shop, including the Mickey Mouse sauce containers:
http://stores.ebay.com/sakurazakkashop

Here are a few others I've ordered from more than once:
http://stores.ebay.com/JstuffSale-dotcom?_trksid=p4340.l2563
http://stores.ebay.com/yingkajapan?_trksid=p4340.l2563
http://stores.ebay.com/takarazukadesigns
Enjoy!
 
~The Lemonista