A love themed lunchbox (+ dinner & desert)

If you read my Facebook page you'll have seen my love themed lunchbox I made my 5 year old for Valentines Day last week (thanks again for all the comments and likes). It was a lot of fun to make- I actually like making these type of lunch boxes every now and then (like twice a year!) as they at least relieve the monotony of making the same old lunchbox everyday like I normally do! And the look on Amelie's face when she saw the lunchbox and her excitement at taking it to school was a great feeling :)

 

So here are the details of what I put in it...

* pretzels 

* grapes (actually wanted to use strawberries but couldn't find any)

* hershey's kisses

* a heart shaped ham sandwich with small cut out heart on the top layer of bread ( jam would be good too)

* heart shaped watermelon pieces- these are my new favourite thing to cut into shapes- so easy!

*a love cupcake- I made vanilla cupcakes with vanilla butter icing which I coloured light pink, then added some sprinkles and a heart decoration from this packet of decorations from the supermarket (Queen Icing Figurines Little Princess). A friend told me a while ago about these great disposable piping bags and nozzles also from the supermarket so my icing looks a lot fancier than it used to (and it's so much quicker to ice a batch of cupcakes!

I also added a yoghurt and a special treat of of a calci-yum strawberry milk pop top (Amelie has never had a treat drink for school before so she was excited about this the most I think!) I had to put them in a separate lunch box with a cooler lid (along with the cupcake which didn't actually fit in the other lunchbox when you shut the lid but looks good for the photo!). The lunchbox I used for the love treats is actually an organising container from Storage Box (they're also called bait boxes and you can get them from Hammer Hardware thanks Jenni for the tip!). I use these containers all the time for snacks after seeing a friend use them- such a good idea for putting lots of little things in, and they are nice and narrow - not bulky like normal lunch boxes.

For dinner we made homemade heart pizza's which I also did last year. For the kids I bought pita breads and cut them into heart shapes (tip: I used scissors which made it a lot easier!) then they chose their toppings (from my awesome new/old tupperware server I bought off Trademe - here's the same one for sale on trade me) and then made their own pizza's which they loved doing. One day we may even make the pizza dough first -I have a great recipe from a friend who might let me share it :)

For desert I'm no culinary queen but the kids loved this idea I had- I rolled up balls of ice-cream and then rolled them in sprinkles and then put them back in the freezer until we needed them. Then I cut pineapple slices and used a big heart shaped cutter to cut out the pineapples hearts....nice and easy and very popular! The obsessive in me is sort of wishing I'd done big watermelon hearts with ice cream rolled in heart sprinkles as that would look much more Valentines Day-ish colour wise but I had to work with what I had so maybe next year!

So there you have it, some ideas for a love themed lunch and dinner- doesn't have to be Valentines Day to do it, just any day you want to celebrate a bit of love in your home!

Megan x