Another Quick Bear Sandwich Bento

I'm almost two weeks into making bentos, and learning a lot! I think one of the main tricks to being able to do it every day is to have something prepped or have things that can just be thrown in without any prep (i.e. snacks, crackers, nuts, etc). Fruit is relatively easy to cut up quickly, as well. That being said, today I didn't have anything prepped and I had to throw together something on the fly. Mike also left the big bento box at work so I had to use the little one. 

We're already running low on bread and I barely got two slices out of the squaw loaf. When I do my grocery shopping this weekend, I'll plan better. Slapped on some peanut butter and jelly and made some cute bear faces for the top as decoration. The bears are made from muenster cheese with a bear shaped cutter, with string cheese slices as the muzzle and little ham circles for their noses (I used a plastic straw to make those). I used some nori for the eyes and made one look sleepy just for variety. 

The rest of the string cheese got cut up in pieces and pierced with cute animal pics. I did take the time to cut the kiwis into flowers with my handy veggie cutter, and cut the blood oranges into slices for effect. These pictures do not do blood oranges justice; if you have a chance to get some from your local market, do so - the color is just intense and so dramatic! They make the greatest garnish for fruit salads or tarts or any dessert, really.

Dumped in some chocolate covered sunflower seeds and this bento's ready to go!

I will say that being creative takes some pre-thought, I couldn't come up with these ideas in just 5-10 minutes. I sort of sleepily think about it while I'm brushing my teeth and doing my morning routine, or I browse the web for ideas. If you have an idea of how you're going to make things cute, that helps make the process much faster. Otherwise I'd just be staring into the fridge like any other morning.