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Posts Tagged ‘giveaway

I promised to do a giveaway when I got to 1000 likes on Facebook.  I didn’t forget!  This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for many things, family, friends, a wonderful house and neighborhood, my group of bento bloggers who have been so supportive, and I’m also grateful for you.  Yes, YOU!   I started this blog as a way of helping a handful of friends with creative ideas, and now there are almost 1100 people on Facebook alone that follow bentoriffic, over 600 on twitter (bentoriffic) , over 600 on Instagram (bentoriffic), over 500 on Pinterest and the list goes on.  I really am grateful that you care, comment, read and offer suggestions.  I’ve gone from carnivore to vegan, inspired and creative to some days just throwing it together like we moms do some days.  I appreciate you sticking with me through it all.  THANK YOU!!!

These are the only turkeys my kids are eating this year.  I used pie crust cutters I had from last year as sandwich cutters.

My 4 year old’s lunch is a flock of turkeys on Rudi’s Whole Grain bread stuffed with almond butter.  Above the turkeys are a sliced kiwi and cashews.  In the top compartments are pineapple, honeydew and cantaloupe pieces packed in her Easy LunchBoxes container.

My 2 year old from the top left has raspberries, 2 of the same turkey shaped sandwiches on almond butter, maple leaf shaped watermelon pieces and dried cherries, Marcona almonds with maple leaf dried apricots on top packed in her LunchBots Quad.

DETAILS OF THE LOOT!

I decided on 2 separate prizes for the giveaway.

The first person will win the following:

1 complete set of Easy Lunchboxes

1 CuteZCute cutter kit

2 sets of cookie cutter shapes and 3 sets of bento picks

The first drawing is open to residents of North America only.

The second prize will be a $35 credit to spend at Bento USA by All Things For Sale and is open to readers worldwide.

All you have to do to enter to win is leave me a comment telling me what you are grateful for this year and in which country you live.  Please make sure you leave me a way to contact you, please!

Both winners will be chosen when the contest ends on Wednesday, November 28th at 11:59pm by random.org.  You will have 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.

I am excited to share the new CuteZCute cutter with my readers!  One lucky reader will win a CuteZCute kit of their own.  This contest is open to readers worldwide.  This tool takes the guesswork and time out of detailed cute lunches.  I was given a kit to try out and review.  I have received no other compensation for this review.

The CuteZCute Food Deco Cutter kit comes with 6 pieces.  There is a face frame for the template, 4 animal feature cutters including a panda, frog, pig and cat and a great pick for poking out small pieces from the templates.  My favorite feature aside from the awesome possibilities and ease of use is that each facial cutter has a side for cutting through on one side and for simply imprinting on the other which takes the guess work out of hoping you don’t ruin a bunch of bread.  Many cutters also come with intricate designs but don’t offer a way of getting the pieces out without ruining what you’ve cut.  This Panda Assistant poker makes it very simple to get out the eye, ear, nose and mouth pieces without poking small holes in what you’ve cut.

This panda lunch was the first lunch I made with the CuteZCute cutter for a lunch.  I used whole wheat bread and cut the face features from Stretch Island fruit leather strips.  For each creation, you simply cut the face shape from whatever you’re using.  I’ve seen pizzas, rice, cookies, english muffins, bread, tortillas cheese and you could even use pie dough for individual pies.

I also did this almond butter and jam pig lunch with the cutter.  I can tell you after a couple of years hand cutting shapes, this kit is a dream.  I spend about 10 minutes tops making the lunches with the CuteZCute.

The above frog quesadilla was made with green tortillas and Daiya brand non-dairy cheese shreds.  The frog is on a Wholly Guacamole lily pad.  From start to finish this took me less than 10 minutes.

Some examples of the different faces you can make with the cutter are below.

My blogging friend also has a link up party on her blog of dozens of cute ideas for the different uses of all the possibilities with these cutters.  Click below to see all the fun CuteZCute lunches:

Lunch With Eyeness CuteZCute Ideas

I decided to come up with a few holiday ideas for the CuteZCute on my own just to show how quick and easy it can be to have fun.

Now that Halloween’s over, there are still fall festivals happening so I thought a scarecrows would be fun.  I used the face template for the face.  I hand cut the hat and used the bread crust scraps to make hair.  The facial features are the frog eye cutter made from fruit leather. I used the pig ear cutter on a mini carrot slice for the scarecrow’s nose, the pig’s eyes are the cheeks made from apple skin, and the frog’s mouth cutter is the scarecrow’s mouth from fruit leather.  I used 2 pretzel rods for the scarecrow’s arms.

I made a reindeer out of pumpernickel bread and the face template.  The eyes and nose were the panda bear’s eye cutters.  The reindeer eyes are the bread scraps from the scarecrow as is the reindeer’s mouth made from the panda mouth cutter.  The red nose is also using the panda bear’s eye cutter used to cut a small piece of apple.   I used the bread scraps and the panda mouth cutter to make the antlers for the reindeer.

Other reasons to love the CuteZCute:

*It’s owned and operated in the U.S.A.

*It’s made from durable, food safe plastic and packaged in recyclable packaging.

*It’s so simple your kids can use it.

*It’s a perfect birthday gift, holiday gift and stocking stuffer.

*At $8.99 it’s affordable to almost everyone considering how many options the kit gives and available for sale at both my favorite bento supply site All Things For Sale and on Amazon.

The Rules:

Contest opens 11/2/2012 and ends at 12:01am on 11/9/2012. Winner will receive one CuteZCute Food Deco Cutter Kit.

Contest is open to all people worldwide.

One entry for each item:

1.”Like” CuteZCute on Facebook

2.Pin a photo from this giveaway to Pinterest, and leave a comment with the URL to the Pin in my blog comments.

3.Tweet about the giveaway and leave your twitter username in my blog comments.

Winner will be chosen by random.org and posted on 11/10/2012.  Winner will have 72 hours to respond to request by email.  If first winner doesn’t respond in the given time, a new winner will be chosen.  Please make sure you leave me a way to get a hold of you.  Good luck!

I ran out of creative steam last night so I decided to sleep on it.  I woke up a bit fresher this morning, and thought Pinwheels!  I haven’t done those in a long time.  I usually do a sloppy job of making them.  This time I didn’t put as much filling in them and loaded the girls up with other yummy things in their lunch.

Both of them have almond butter & jam on whole grain tortillas.  Miss G’s version has musical note picks in them to hold them together.  Below on the left are cashews and raisins, and on the bottom right are blueberry stuffed raspberries.  In the top compartments are a mini homemade vegan oatmeal muffin with a tree pick and carrot and celery sticks.

Make sure to ask schools or play places if they are peanut or nut-free before your bring your lunches there.  It could save a child’s life!  As a rule in our family, we don’t take peanut butter out in public just as a precaution.   We only eat it at home now.   We pack SunButter, almond butter and sometimes even a soy based butter.  There are lots of great options out there to explore that won’t endanger someone’s health.

Miss A’s version has the food she likes and will eat.  She has the same mini tortilla roll ups with flower picks.  Below that to the left she has picks of pineapple and blueberries and underneath those are sliced green grapes, at bottom right are cashews and a dried apricot flower.  In the top left compartment is a mini oatmeal muffin with a bee pick and at the top right are raspberries.   Both lunches are packed in Easy Lunch Boxes.

One lucky winner will win a boatload of lunch making goodies from my 1 year giveaway.

click the link below to see all the fun stuff and enter.

Bentoriffic One Year Giveaway

Quick summer lunches can be as easy as breaking out that container of cookie cutters.  It takes no more time than a normal lunch to do these.  I started with candy eyes which I still use sometimes, but fruits & vegetables can be just as quick.   I recommend using leftovers from dinner & getting creative rather than cutting into new fruits & veggies.  I often pack a small container of leftovers while we’re cleaning up dinner of things that I could include in the kids’ lunches.

Today’s lunches were simple.  Miss A has a hedgehog with a black bean for an eye.  At the top left is a quinoa salad I made the night before that makes great leftovers.  It was made of quinoa, black beans, lemon juice and lemon zest, tomatoes and green onions.  At the top right are halved green grapes with a watermelon crown.

Miss G had a cartoon looking dinosaur sandwich for her lunch.  At the top left are honeydew and watermelon animals at at the right in the green clover are edamame.

5 days to enter my one year giveaway!  Click below to see what you can win and enter!

Bentoriffic One Year Giveaway

So…my original winner did NOT respond in time and left me no way to contact her.  I redrew the winner this morning, and guess who won???

Here’s what Random.org chose:

That’s you,

1 | Mowie Ocampo-Hui
May 7, 2012 at 11:34 am |

I always like FUNBITES on FB

Happy Mother’s Day, Mowie!  Please email me your mailing address: bentoriffic@gmail.com with your choice of FunBites cutter.

Hope everyone has a great day today!

What better way to say you love your mother than to win a fun kitchen tool?  Or one that will help kids to make their own meals!  I was introduced to FunBites a few months back when they were kind enough to include me in doing a review for the Luv It cutter.

FunBites wants to celebrate Mother’s Day with my readers by giving away one of their cutters.  The winner may choose which cutter they want.  Please read the end of this post to find out how to win one of these!

I must admit that the first time I got the FunBites Luv It cutter, I played with it for a few minutes.  Then my creative brain took over.  My kids didn’t need any time to decide to play.  They still think it’s a fun toy.  Luckily, it is also seriously durable and washes clean quickly.  I am not afraid to let them have the FunBites cutters to experiment.  Yes, it’s been chucked across the table, accidentally dropped and well used by my 2 and 4 year old, and both cutters still look like new.  NOT that I recommend trying it, but with toddlers anything can happen.  The best part is that once you show them, even the littlest kids can use it to help make their own snacks.  Mine LOVE creating shapes and playing with the pieces of bread, fruit, pitas or anything cut out of these fun food cutters.

One of the most important parts of the piece for me when spending money on my family is the kind of business I support.  If you don’t think about who you’re buying from, you should.  FunBites is a family-owned business started by a mom just like you and me.  Their products are made of safe, BPA-free, non-leaching plastics, and are made in the USA supporting families here.  Please check out their brief story here: FunBites-Our Story.

Here is one of the FunBites lunches I recently did:

FunBites Kite Lunch

For Mother’s Day, I thought it would be great to think of all the things we do.   Without mom’s a house is just a house, but with love and care it becomes the place your heart and home are.  The cantaloupe at the top left was cut with the Cube It FunBites cutter.  At the top right is guacamole in the yellow flower cup.  In the green clover cup are small, square tortilla chips I made with the Cube It FunBites cutter (see how below!)  The sandwich is Justin’s almond butter & strawberry jam on Ezekiel bread all cut with the FunBites Luv It cutter shapes.  The sun’s rays are soy cheese cut with the same cutter, and the hearts are fruit leather cut from the FunBites Luv It cutter too.

So for the homemade tortilla chips, I cut a whole grain tortilla (also pita bread or flatbread is easy for these too) with the Cube It FunBites cutter.  I placed them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Then I lightly misted grapeseed oil (or any oil, just go easy with it) over the pieces and lightly sprinkled garlic powder over them.  I placed them in the oven on my low broiler setting and placed in the middle of the oven.  As long as you’re watching them, you can do this at 300-350 too.  They take about 5-7 minutes depending on your oven.  Again, just make sure to watch them.  Because they’re small pieces, they brown quickly.  My kids like the garlic chips with guacamole and hummus.  You can do the same thing and use cinnamon instead of the garlic powder.

Here’s how they turned out:

And then I arranged them into a fun flowery snack with some hummus:

Don’t forget to do something special for yourself this weekend if you’re a mom!

Here’s how to win your choice of a Luv It or Cube It cutter from FunBites.  You must submit separate entries for each one of these items to receive separate chances to win.

1. YOU MUST “LIKE” FunBites on Facebook

2. YOU MUST “LIKE” Bentoriffic on Facebook

Optional entries:

3. “SHARE” this post on Facebook

4. Blog about this giveaway and leave me the link to your blog in my comments

5. Follow me on my blog by subscribing to my wordpress posts.

GOOD LUCK!

This contest will go through midnight on Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 10pm.  I will choose a winner by random.org and contact you.  You will have 48 hours to respond, or I will choose a new winner.
Wishing everyone a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend!


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