Loving Every Lunch Round Up and Link Party

Did you join in our hash-tag project on Instagram for February? Did you Love Every Lunch? If you did, please share it with us!

Here's my collection from the month (well, it might not actually be here yet - I'm doing this post up early so the Party can get started)

NB I will give you a summary of the lunches here - but for now, please forgive these weary bones as they catch some rest.

[EDIT]
What a month for our little Honey! I was so surprised at how quickly she professed through the textures of solids, and it is so fun watching her learn the tastes, smells, and feel of all her food. We didn't really introduce very many colours this month (I do plan to 'eat a rainbow' each day with her as she gets up there) so there was very little in way of variety, making lunch choices quick & easy. Got to love that! I was going to re-tell you exactly what she ate each day, but that would late forever. If you'd like more information, you can check out the Instagram feed here, or ask & I'll let you know :-). In summary she had:
11 lunches of fruit and/or veges (potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, cauliflower, banana)
10 lunches of Farex (rice cereal)
5 lunches of yoghurt
1 lunch of leftovers and
1 lunch she slept through :-)

Wow, I knew I made a few of Miss M's new favourite pepperoni, cheese, red (tomato) sauce rectangle sandwiches, but when you see it like this - wow! For the month Miss M had:

15 x Pepperoni, Cheese and sauce sandwiches

10 x kindy lunches (sandwich, fruit, snack, yoghurt & popper juice)

1 x 'shopping' lunchbox (sandwich, roll up fruit leather, biscuits with cheese dip)

1 x watermelon for lunch

1 x party lunch (details in this post)

Now I know I have a weak spot for pizza, but I didn't think I had it that much. Guess I know where I need to cut down now. For the month I had:

8 x leftovers for lunch

5 x pizza

4 x pie

3 x toasties

2 x hot chook (BBQ/rotisserie chicken)

2 x ready made cheaty eats

1 x hot chips

1 x smoothie

1 x yoghurt

1 x sandwich

So here's the scoop! Follow the prompts in the Link widget below to add a link to your collection of #LovingEveryLunchforaMonth. Please only one link per luncher (lunchee?), but if you catalogued more than one person's lunch, please feel free to add another link. I will keep the party open for the month of March so you have plenty of time to round up your goodies and share the love!

Valentine's Pinkie Pie

Happy Valentine's Day! Are you doing anything special to celebrate?

Nothing fancy planned here, but here's one of the 'hearty' lunches I made this week.

Miss M is right into My Little Pony at the moment and I am no artist, so I've been printing off images & trying to recreate them. For this heart Pinkie Pie I tried ham & pepperoni. . .

What do you think? The tail isn't quite as 'poofy' as I'd hoped, but I think she worked out OK.

And I had to add a little extra 'I <3 PP' too

I also traced the image onto greaseproof paper to show Miss M what Pinkie was supposed to look like, and help to stop the pretties from moving too far.

Grapes and blueberry 'balloons' for today's fruit. I also found some My Little Pony Fruit Strings & biscuits so, happy days! Yoghurt went to Kindy in a Sinchies

Miss M's popper/juice box got the Pinkie treatment too. Isn't this a fun image? So very Pinkie ;-P

Have you been #LovingEveryLunchforaMonth ? Details on how to share the love are in this previous post. Don't forget to tag your creations, and come link them up at the end of the month. I'd love to 'see' you there!

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.
~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

Hearts, Hooves and a Hop

Love is in the air and the Bento Bloggers & Friends are hopping to celebrate! There is simply too much love for one hop, so later on today there's going to be another! Check out the Bento Bloggers & Friends page for details.

My offering this year celebrates Hearts & Hooves Day. My little Miss M is all about the Ponies at the moment, so I couldn't let the opportunity pass to lunchify one of her favourite episodes.

There's a fair few images out there of Big Mac & Cheerilee from this episode. I chose one vector taken from the show, and a fan art (of Fluttershy) to help me with this lunch.

Using this great technique I picked up from Robot Squirrel & the Monkeys I decorated some cheese with FooDoodlers. For Miss M's recent Fluttershy lunch I popped a piece of greaseproof paper on top of the sandwich so the details wouldn't stick to the lid. I used the opportunity to draw what she was supposed to look like. I did it again today, only this time I recycled the piece used to impart the image to start with. I just added a few hearts and a 'Schmoopsey Poo!' Hand Drawn (can you see why I trace?) Hearts & Hooves title on cheese with crust offcuts below.

I had to include an apple for today's fruit. It didn't' really work, but I did try to FooDoodler a green apple cutie mark like Big Mac's on there. It would have worked much better had I cut the skin off, but Miss M doesn't like any of the anti-browning methods I've tried so far.

Snack today is Pepperoni from Walkerston Country Meats and cheese. Cut with Create A Shape and decorated with FooDoodlers to resemble Cheerilee's cutie mark.

All snug in their little container.

Last but not least I wrapped her popper/juice box in a print out (my printer needs new ink) and wrote a little note for her. Also included with lunch today - a Sinchies of yoghurt and some My Little Pony biscuits for a treat.

Now for the fun part! Send some Love to fellow Aussie BeBento Kids by clicking on the button below. Keep hopping until you return here. Then head over to Bento Bloggers & Friends later today for another *Love*ly hop.

Have you been #LovingEveryLunchforaMonth ? Details on how to share the love are in this previous post. Don't forget to tag your creations, and come link them up at the end of the month. I'd love to 'see' you there!

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.
~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

Flashback Friday Tiger Sandwich

Just a quickie today. This is one of my *very* early works. Circle cutter, some vegemite & FooDoodlers with some offcuts for ears.

Not the prettiest of sandwiches, but Miss M was happy with it & that's all that counts!

Have you been #LovingEveryLunchforaMonth ? Don't forget to tag your creations, and come link them up at the end of the month.

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.
~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

Chinese New Year Pony

Is it really February already? I can't believe I missed Chinese New Year - and this year being the year of the Horse too! Miss M is on a My Little Pony bender at the moment so I wanted to include her favourite Rainbow Dash. Cut nori on cheese, coloured with FooDoodlers. The numbers are re-purposed letters cut from cheese.

And this then inspired the rest of her lunch. She had: Ham & Cheese 'pocket' sandwich, topped with my pretty nori & cheese art. Some crusts filled the box and were topped with a rainbow baran. Cheese circles with the cutie marks of the Mane Six drawn with FooDoodlers Lychees and blueberries Pepperoni from Walkerston Country Meats packed in the bottom of the orange snack pod, then I layered in some baking paper with the cheese in the hope that the cutie marks wouldn't rub too much. We'll see what the verdict it. Some crackers in there too. Rainbow Popper Sinchies yoghurt I had a few spare images so I thought I'd cut them out & make my own version of LunchBox Love notes.

I'd seen this image in a few places while doing some  birthday party research and thought it would be perfect to try my hand at some Nori Cutting. I know it's a stretch, but I was inspired my Little Miss Bento's New Year Horse and after reading her fantastic tutorial on nori cutting I really wanted to try it for myself. Sticking it to the cheese I discovered in this video.

I misjudged the size of image I'd need printed out, so one of the larger ones was wrapped around Miss M's juice for the day. Simple idea, easily replicated :-)

And going along instead of fruit to share today is Kambrook Speed Serve carrot cake for Carrot Cake Day!

If it wasn't for the #LovingEveryLunchforaMonth prompts I would be none the wiser. I've learned so much this year already!

Have you been #LovingEveryLunchforaMonth ? Don't forget to tag your creations, and come link them up at the end of the month.

This lunch is linked:

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.
~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

#LovingEveryLunchforaMonth Prompts

Are you excited to start #LovingEveryLunchforaMonth Saturday? I had thought I might do up prompts for each day to maybe inspire you, but then I thought 'No, if there's something special coming up, I like to plan something special'. So instead of daily prompts, I'm going to give you a giant list for the month in one post!

I've long said there must be a 'day' for every day of the year, and most of these 'days' I didn't even know existed, but thanks to Google, now we all do! My sources are:
Australian Government Department of Health
Days of the Year
Our Community
National Calendar
Holiday Insights
Cute Calendar
Food.com
United Nations

As with most things on the internet these days there is so much choice so I'm just going to select a few.

Firstly - events that last the whole month!
Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month
Heart Month, or Red Feb and Children's Heart Disease Awareness Month
FebFast
Hot Breakfast Month

Events that last a week:
1-7 World Interfaith Harmony Week
9-15 Duchenne Awareness Week
10-16 Random Acts of Kindness Week
17-23 Australia's Healthy Weight Week
23-2 March Donate Life Week

And Daily:
1 - Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, Decorating with Candy Day, Working Naked Day
2 - Neuroblastoma Awareness Day, Crepe Day, Hedgehog Day
3 - Carrot Cake Day, The Day the Music Died
4 - World Cancer Day, Homemade Soup Day
5 - World Nutella Day
6 - Waitangi Day, Frozen Yoghurt Day
7 - USA Bubble Gum Day, Ballet Day, Olympic Games Opening Ceremony
8 - Kite Flying Day
9 - Read in the Bathtub Day, Toothache Day
10 - Umbrella Day
11 - Safer Internet Day, Extraterrestrial Culture Day, Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day
12 - Darwin Day
13 - World Radio Day, Madly in Love with Me Day, National Tortellini   Day
14 - St Valentine's Day; Heart Research Day, Ferris Wheel Day; February Full Moon
15 - Hippo Day
16 - Innovation Day, Almond Day
17 - Cafe Au Lait Day
18 - International Aspergers Day, Single Tasking Day
19 - Choc Mint Day
20 - World Harmony Day, Love Your Pet Day
21 - The Empire Strikes Back, Special Edition Anniversary
22 - Open That Bottle Night, World Thinking Day
23 - Melba Toast Day, Olympics Closing Ceremony
24 - National Sunnies for Sight Day, National Tortilla Chip Day
25 - Clam Chowder Day
26 - Teal Ribbon Day (for Ovarian Cancer), Tell a Fairy Tale Day
27 - Polar Bear Day, Chili Day, Strawberry Day
28 - Rare Disease Day; School Clean Up Day, Tooth Fairy Day

I do realise I've missed quite a few 'days'. If you'd like me to add any to this list, please let me know :-)

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.
~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.