BBF Back-To-School Basics Hop & Giveaway

It is difficult to believe that summer is almost over and the new school year will soon be here. Bento Bloggers & Friends (BBF) are joining together to share their back-to-school tips for packing lunch and are also having an awesome giveaway. You can enter for a chance to win the giveaway on the Rafflecopter near the end of this post. If you hop through the Bento Blogger & Friends blog hop you can collect a letter tile on each post in the hop. Once you complete the hop, simply arrange the letters in numerical order to spell a word to put in the Rafflecopter entry form.

Making lunches for school does not have to be a dreaded chore. My son helps me make his lunches. The lunches are usually inspired by the stories we read together at bedtime. It takes a couple of extra minutes to use a cookie cutter on a sandwich to make a lunch "story-themed". Here is a quick lunch I made this week inspired by an article in National Geographic Kids magazine:

It contains: ham & cheese leopard sandwich made with the CuteZCute cutter, banana chips ground, a tree made from a Zbar and pumpkin seeds, a marshmallow with a sun drawn on it, blueberries for water, and a salad.

This lunch has the basic supplies I use whenever I make a school lunch: container, silicone cups, cookie cutter (or knife), food markers, and yummy food my son will eat.

My favorite lunch boxes are EasyLunchboxes and Laptop Lunches. This lunch was put in an Easy Lunchbox. Both lunchboxes offer divided areas which is wonderful because my son is not a big fan of his food touching.

Silicone cups are a great way to separate food. All Things for Sale has a large variety of silicone cups.

There are so many adorable, easy-to-use cookie cutters on the market. I like to use my Wilton cutters or CuteZCute Cutters. It makes dressing up a lunch a snap. Sometimes I just use a sharp knife to cut story characters out of bread.

One of my favorite ways to add a quick detail to a lunch, is to use food decorating pens. I have found that this Ameri-Color Gourmet Writer set works the best for me. I used the yellow marker to draw a sun on the marshmallow in the leopard lunch.

Lastly, I need a good bag to put the lunch in. I like upright bags so the food does not get turned on its side. California Innovations Lunch Bucket is my favorite lunchbox. I have bought my son a new one each school year. This bag has two compartments. My son puts his water bottle in the top. Sometimes he forgets to close it tightly and it spills. With the two compartments, the water is contained in the top level. Healthy Eating Starts At Home had a great review on this bag last August, you can read it HERE.

Be sure to write down the tile letter with number as you go through the hop. You will want to collect all of the letter tiles in the hop before entering the Rafflecopter.

Click this hop button to find your next letter tile and to see what tips Biting the Hand That Feeds You has for back-to-school lunches.

Have you made it through the hop and collected all 16 letters? Now, you are ready to enter the giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar!  If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.