Today isn’t just lunch box inspiration, it’s also a giveaway of some really fun lunch box gear and products to get you excited for the coming school year! Keep reading, it’s a long post 🙂
I’m always looking for fun new ways to pack a lunch and I thought I’d share some inspiration with you today. I don’t make crazy intricate lunches often, but once in a while I get overly motivated or Macey needs a little sunshine in her lunch box and I’ll go wild with creativity. Things like this are fun when you want them to be fun, but don’t think I do them every day, that would suck the fun out for me. Here were some really cute and extra creative lunch box ideas that I liked.
I’m on team you might as well try to be healthy. Use homemade whole wheat bread, real cheese, and if you are going to use packaged convenience foods, get healthy ones! Lucky for you the giveaway today is for a bunch of our favorite healthy store-bought brands (Annie’s, Rudi’s, Applegate, Honest Tea, and Organic Valley). Yay!
Here are some of those super fun lunch box ideas to get you excited:
Dinosaur Bento Box from Wendolonia
Spooky Haunted House from BentoLunch.net
Easy Pasta Salad Lunch by Bless this Mess
Happy Birthday from Chaos and Confections
Hello Kitty Bento Lunch from Create Eat Happy
Spider Lunch Box from Bless this Mess
Read Across America Lunch from This Lunch Rox
Happy Bunny Bento from Another Lunch
Very Turkey Sandwich from Bless this Mess
Pooh and Piglet Bento from Mothering Corner
Despicable Me Minion Bento Lunch from Glory’s Mischief
The Classic from Bless this Mess
Fish Sammies for Bento Lunch from Hawaii’s Bento Box Cookbook
Gumball Bento Lunch from BentOnBetterLunches
There’s more! Nutritionist Amelia who works with these great brands sent me some lunch box tips and I wanted to share them.
Amelia’s Top Lunchbox Tips
Think outside the sandwich. When I hear the phrase “packed lunch” I immediately think of a sandwich in a brown bag. But sandwiches get old fast, and plenty of other foods offer great nutritional value and equal convenience. Instead of focusing your child’s lunch around a sandwich, pack a yogurt parfait, mini frittata, or pasta salad. If your child does like sandwiches best, change up the format occasionally by making a wrap, burrito, stuffed roll or panini.
Invest in a Bento box. Kids (and adults!) of all ages love and appreciate finger foods, and a Bento box – or collection of small containers – allows you to pack a variety of healthy items that together equal a balanced meal. Keep all the food groups in mind when assembling your little nibbles – protein, grains, vegetables, fruits and healthy fat. A little of each of these nutrients will help keep your child satisfied throughout the day
Include your child in some aspect of food prep. When you invite the kids to help you make a shopping list, select fruits & veggies at the grocery store, or wash and prepare lunch foods on the weekends, they’ll feel more invested in the healthy food you serve them. Even a monthly trip to the farmer’s market to pick out fresh produce and a few specialty items can get your kids excited about what might appear in their packed lunch.
Make lunches colorful. Appeal to your child’s senses by offering a variety of colors, textures and tastes in her lunch. Serving different colors of fruits and vegetables is a great way to create visual appeal as well as maximum nutritional value. Aim to include in-season produce, so fruits and vegetables taste their best.
Aren’t those great.
And because a giveaway is always fun you can enter to win a lunch box inspiration prize pack – it includes a bento style lunch box, a stainless steel leak-proof container, and lots of coupons and product from Annie’s, Rudi’s, Applegate, Honest Tea, and Organic Valley.
You can also share your own lunch box creations for more chances to win prizes at www.rockthelunchbox.com . I love popping on this site to get new ideas.
Here’s where you enter:
I hope this post got the healthy creative juices flowing. Enjoy and have a good luck in that giveaway!
Disclosure: This isn’t a paid post. I participated last year in spreading the #rockthelunchbox love and enjoyed it so much that I thought I’d do it again this year. They did send me the same prize that you all will get though and we have loved it.
These are too cute. I should do some of them for my husband, it would be too funny for him to pull out his lunch at break at Costco with all his co workers and have Piglet and Pooh bear to eat! 🙂
I need to get more creative with school lunches! It is hard though when my son can’t warm up his food and he only likes PB&J sandwiches. The spider bean dip is adorable though, and he would love that!
I need to add more sunshine to lunches on occasion. 🙂 Thanks for the idea list!
My youngest(daughter) always loves cut-outs of food some more inspiration the better
! Thanks for the chance at this great giveaway!
I would have loved these as a kid and I’m sure my daughter will too!
I thought these were adorable! I especially liked the Minion themed lunch box.
okay, they are all adorable! I feel like a lunch box slacker now 🙂
Yay! I love these ideas!
Great lunch ideas. I flow you on instagram and love your ideas!
Yay for instagram love! Thanks for popping onto the blog lady 🙂
I Love all these cute ideas…especially the Halloween ones…now just to remember therm! 🙂
I have a husband in grad school full time and soon to be my first “little” in elementary. Something different than the pb&j in a brown paper sack would be wonderful! I need Ideas and supplies! I hope I win 🙂
I soooo need this. I am on a really tight budget this year. Fingers crossed and prayers said. Thanks for the chance.
Lots of cute ideas!
Really cute ideas! Thanks for the opportunity!
So many great ideas! I’m bookmarking for reference. Thank you for the wonderful giveaway.
Erin
So many great and very cute ideas!
Lunches are one of my least favourite chores but I see these cute lunches and I think of how excited the kids would be when they opened these up. I’m going to try…hopefully I won’t be posting my pics as a “Pinterest fail”. Lol
I love the boxes you have all the lunches displayed in. Are they the Bentos boxes you mentioned? I will have to do some checking to find something similar for my preschoolers lunch box. Love the blog!
I’m going to try some of these ideas thanks.
Such fun lunches I have a 5 year old and try to make them fun!
wonderful ideas!
Fun ideas!
Such fun ideas. Love them.
See… I see these and think “how cute!” but then it’s 8:00 and time to leave and I just throw the best thing I can find in the bag…
I love these ideas, thanks for sharing!
My sister gave me a bunch of those boiled egg shapes, my kids LOVE those. What great ideas, thanks.
What wonderful ideas! Thank you!
thanks for the ideas – i had to read the spider bean dip recipe – from the pic, I thought it was a giant brownie with icing. I obviously have chocolate on my brain.
I love all these ideas! My boys will be happily surprised when they open their lunches at school 🙂
My kids would sure get a kick out of this “lunch box”!!!
Thanks for the great giveaway and lunch ideas!
My children are grown now, but what I wouldn’t give to have been able to access this sort of information when I was packing school lunches. Absolutely adorable. My grandson would love this.
So fun… though really do most people have the time? I love the ideas and wish I was more ambitious.