Today I'm going to share some easy little tips and tricks to make your child's packed lunch extra special this Valentines Day. I pack fun bento lunches all the year around, but I always try to make a little extra effort at this time of year - I intend to continue packing a heart filled Valentines day lunch for my boys every year for as long as I can still get away with it!
Though Valentines Day is traditionally about romance I've always told Small Child that Valentines day is the day to remind the special people in your life that you love them, and my children are definitely at the top of that list for me! We don't celebrate in a big way, but I think that kind little acts of love here and there can be just as effective a way of expressing love as any grand gestures.
I've packed lots of ideas into these few lunch boxes, but using just one or two ideas can make all the difference to an ordinarily plain lunch. Hearts in a bento lunch always go down well with Small Child - I tell him that I'm packing an extra bit of love for him and I know it makes him smile - he's still young enough not to care how soppy it is!
In this lunch: Pitta bread toasted and cut into hearts with cream cheese to spread on them, slices of cucumber topped with red pepper hearts, a hard boiled egg, shaped into a panda using the CuteZCute Animal Palz kit, popped into a pink silicone cup and topped with a red pepper heart, melon chunks cut into heart shapes, blueberries and strawberry yoghurt topped with red heart sprinkles. This lunch was packed in a Yumbox Classic bento box, and I used nesting heart cutters and mini bento cutters to cut the shapes.
In this lunch: cream cheese and raspberry jam sandwich on wholemeal bread, cut into hearts using a heart sandwich cutter, slices of roast beef, rolled and skewered on heart picks, raw baby carrots and grapes, topped with heart fork picks and a little chocolate heart treat, hidden under the blueberries. This lunch was packed in the Yumbox Panino bento box.
Here are a few more ideas from past healthy Valentines themed lunches - strawberry hearts skewered on a heart pick, red pepper hearts, cucumber slices with tiny hearts cut from their centres, grape hearts (you can find a simple tutorial for these here), heart shaped sandwiches made using cookie cutters, a heart cut into the wax of a Babybel cheese, and hearts made from yoghurt frozen in a silicone mould.
I hope I've given you a few ideas for adding some extra love to your child's lunch box this Valentines Day. You can find lots of the tools I used for these lunches in the Valentines section of the Eats Amazing Shop. Don't forget we also stock the fantastic Yumbox bento box too!
Grace
The Student @ Food for Dissertating says
The grape hearts are so clever! I'll have to try that sometime.
Grace says
Thank you, it's a simple idea but I think they look really cute!