Wendy Copley's Blog

My Ridiculous Halloween Bento Stash and a few Halloween Bentos

Woo Hoo! October is here! Are you ready to pack some spooky bentos?

Today I thought I’d share a little tour of all my bento gear I recorded this video last year, but it’s still pretty up-to-date as far as my collection goes.

Are you curious what kinds of lunches I make with these supplies? Here’s a sample of some of the lunches I packed last year:

The post My Ridiculous Halloween Bento Stash and a few Halloween Bentos first appeared on Wendolonia.

Frozen 2 Bento Box – No Fancy Sandwich Art!

Have you seen Frozen 2 yet? Augie and I went to see it Sunday night and we LOVED it!

Anna! Elsa! Olaf! That cute little fire lizard whose name I don’t know!

To channel some of that excitement I made a Frozen lunch and I’ve got a video showing YOU how to do it right here: 

The best part? There’s no fancy sandwich or rice art in this bento so it’s actually, really, truly, realistic to make it on a weekday morning. Hooray!

Supplies used in this video (some of these are affiliate links):

Yumbox Original: https://amzn.to/2LKGt4m Frozen icing decorations: https://www.joann.com/wilton-disney-f… Frozen cupcake picks: https://www.joann.com/wilton-disney-f… Snowflake sprinkles: https://amzn.to/33UMO5k Winter sprinkle variety bottle: https://amzn.to/32OtPIg Michael’s stamping snowflake: https://www.michaels.com/assorted-sno… More Frozen-themed cupcake toppers and whatnot: https://amzn.to/2r7SsTh R&M Snowflake cutter set: https://amzn.to/2CS7MGc More fun bento ideas can be found in my book, Everyday Bento: https://amzn.to/35aqMvK

My Ridiculous Winter Bento Stash and a few Winter Lunches

Winter has set in across the U.S. and we’re even feeling the chill here in California. (It’s rain, not snow but it still counts. Sorta.) The cold weather has put me in the mood to pull out my winter bento stuff and make some wintery bento boxes for my kids.

Want to see what equipment I use for these types of lunches? Check out this video for a tour of my stash:

Products shown in this video (some of these are affiliate links):

Snowflake sprinkles: https://amzn.to/33UMO5k Icicle sprinkles: https://amzn.to/33UdqDx Winter sprinkle variety bottle: https://amzn.to/32OtPIg Michael’s stamping snowflake: https://www.michaels.com/assorted-sno… R&M Snowflake cutter set: https://amzn.to/2CS7MGc More winter bento ideas can be found in my book, Everyday Bento: https://amzn.to/35aqMvK

And here are some examples of lunches I’ve made with these supplies:

Meatball snowman: creepy or cute?? I can’t decide!  His hat, eyes, and buttons are all made of white carrot. The nose is orange carrot. He’s paired with carrot coins, a couple of strips of naan, dried cranberries, yogurt stars and some strawberry applesauce with snowflake sprinkles. 

The Week in Bentos – September 2019 #3

Happy Friday! I have recently restarted a long-running series from this blog — The Week in Bentos! Every week for 7 years(!!) I posted a round-up of all the lunches my kids had during the week. It was fun, but also a lot of work and after my readers’ interest dropped off I decided to stop publishing these posts. I still packed the lunches, of course, but when I posted them they went up on my Facebook and Instagram pages.

But now The Week in Bentos is BACK! Instead of a photo blog post, I’ve decided I’m going to start taking short videos every morning and compiling them into a video. This is the third week I’ve done it and it’s been fun to put them together. As long as people keep watching them, I will keep making them!

You can see weeks 1 and 2 over on my YouTube channel. (Be sure to subscribe while you’re over there so you don’t miss any of my other fantastical bento and craft content!)

And here is this week’s video:

(This post may contain affiliate links.)

Supplies used:

Thermos Foogo food jar PlanetBox Lunch Boxes LunchBots Trio II EasyLunchboxes LunchBots Snack Tray Silicone baking cups – various shapes







[image error] Are you looking for more ideas for packed lunches! My book, Everyday Bento: 50 Cute and Yummy Lunches to Go is packed with ideas for fun, delicious lunches. With 50 brand new bento box lunches and step-by-step photo tutorials showing how to make them it will provide you with loads of inspiration when it’s time to pack lunch. Order today from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Powell’s.

An Autumn Lunch in the PlanetBox

Is fall in the air where you are? It’s not here (it’s going to be 75° today!) so I’m forcing it! Augie has leftover bratwurst, cucumber slices, dried cranberries, teeny little grapes, queso, and these gorgeous leaf-shaped tortilla chips! Packed in a PlanetBox. Chips are from Trader Joes.

(This post may contain affiliate links.)

PlanetBox Lunch Box Comparison – Shuttle, Rover and Launch

Come learn everything you need to know about the three different PlanetBox lunch boxes! I explain how these bento boxes compare in a few different areas: size, durability, accessories, how much they hold and lots more. Did you know that we’ve owned our Rover for over 7 years? Well, I’ll tell you about five times in this video!

Find these lunch boxes on the PlanetBox Website: http://planetbox.com/#oid=1014_1

Need more lunch box info?



Lunch Box Comparison Chart – See how the Rover compares to other lunch box brands PlanetBox Rover review – my first impressions of the Rover See lunches packed in PlanetBoxes – over 200 examples!

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you click on one of the links and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you. This helps support my channel and allows me to create reviews, articles and take photos of my creations. Thanks for your support!

Yumbox Lunch Box Comparison – Original, Panino, Tapas and MiniSnack

Are you confused by the differences between the various Yumbox lunch boxes? This video will show you everything you need to know about one of my favorite brands of bento boxes. See the difference between the sizes. Which tray is best for you? What size should you buy for your child (or yourself)? What are the pros and cons of these bento boxes?

Find these lunch boxes online:

Yumbox Original Lunch Box: (Amazon) (Yumbox) Yumbox Panino: (Amazon) (Yumbox)Yumbox Tapas: (Amazon) (Yumbox) Yumbox MiniSnack: (Amazon) (Yumbox)

Need more lunch box info?

Lunch Box Comparison ChartYumbox Panino vs. Yumbox Original See lunches packed in Yumboxes (over 200 examples!)

A Bento Box Painting in Gouache

Yesterday, I decided to combine two of my old and new passions into one project: a bento box painted with gouache!

I dug through my bento box photo archives and found a photo with a lot of bright colors and simple shapes to reproduce. Then I traced the basic outline onto watercolor paper and went to town painting it.

You can see (nearly) the full process in this video:

And if you’re curious, this is the original photo that I worked from. Pretty close, right?

Gouache Floral Experiments

I’ve been playing around with gouache again (instead of starting my taxes) and last night I painted three small floral pieces.

After my last try, I was pretty frustrated so I started looking around for some better instructional videos. I’ve been digging around YouTube and watching stuff here and there and I also finally signed up for a Skillshare membership. I found a couple of GREAT classes there and decided to give it another go. This time, I was determined to keep it simple and I painted some simplified florals on colored backgrounds. This allowed me to take advantage of one of the best characteristics of gouache paints — the ability to layer lighter colors over darks.

For my first try, really went for it. I painted a circle of black and then layered it with pink flowers and vines inspired by cherry blossoms.

Then, I used the pink paint I had leftover to put down a base layer and topped that off with some daisies.

Finally, I lightened up the green I had left from the daisy stems and painted some forget-me-nots over the top.

I was much happier with these paintings than I was with my house painting I did a few weeks ago. I think flowers are more forgiving in a lot of ways, and simplifying the patters allowed me to really concentrate on my brushwork and getting the right paint consistency.

Slowly but surely!

A Day in San Francisco with a Teen and a Tween

My kids were born in the San Francisco Bay Area and have lived here all their lives, but there are a number of classic SF sites they’ve never seen. As they get older, they’ve started to notice that there are places and activities that people who live out of the area have visited that they’ve never been to. (Alcatraz — I’m looking at you.) They are on spring break this week, so yesterday we headed across the Bay to San Francisco for a day of sightseeing.

Our first stop? Breakfast at Beard Papa! OK, I’ll admit that custard-filled cream puffs for breakfast are insanely decadent, but neither of them had ever had these yummies and I wasn’t sure we’d have a chance to stop for one later in the day. Between the three of us, we opted for cookies and cream, chocolate and creme brulee flavors. Yum!

Since we were already in the Westfield Center for our meal, the kids decided they wanted to have a look around. My boys (aged 10 and 14) are not incredibly interested in fashion which is the focus of this mall, but they did figure out there was a Microsoft store inside, so we stopped there. They played around making drawings on the tablets and testing out the VR headset.

We didn’t have a particular plan for the day but as soon as we stepped out of the mall, the kids saw the Powell Street cable car stop and asked if we could ride it. Yes! Great idea. I told them we’d have to wait in line for a looooooong time before we got on but they were undeterred. Honestly, the constant 60-minute wait to board the cars is why we’ve never ridden them before. Their dad and I have both gone on the cable cars many times so it’s no big deal to us, but the boys were excited for the adventure and didn’t mind the wait.

While we were waiting (and waiting and waiting) in line for our ride, I decided to take them to Lombard Street — aka The Crookedest Street in the World. Lombard is directly on the Powell and Hyde cable car line so it was easy for us to hop off. My kids had never heard of it and certainly had never seen a street like it and they were impressed. If you’ve never seen it before, it’s a twisty, turny, snake of a street with 8 hairpin turns in a single block. We walked down to the bottom on one side of the street and back up to the top on the other, using the stairs that are used in place of a sidewalk.

The top of the hill treats you to gorgeous views of San Francisco and the Bay beyond. Here you can see the Transamerica Pyramid (my favorite building in the SF skyline).

And this photo highlights Coit Tower — a building to visit on another day.

Once we were finished on Lombard, we needed a plan for what to do next. We could see Maritime Park at the bottom of the hill to the north, so we decided to head down to Fisherman’s Wharf for some lunch.

This window well along the way was a perfect fit for the boys.

We considered trying a new restaurant for lunch, but we ended up at the Boudin Bakery because it’s just so dang good. The Wharf tends to offer two kinds of restaurants — expensive seafood places and mediocre chains. Boudin Bakery — the actual birthplace of sourdough bread — is a SF classic with reasonable prices (for Fisherman’s Wharf, that is). I opted for a crab salad sandwich and the kids had a crab melt and a pepperoni pizza with a sourdough crust. SO GOOD!

We couldn’t resist picking up one of the overpriced shaped loaves of sourdough on our way out. This time we opted for a teddy bear over a crab or a turtle.

And I may or may not have heard my kids talking about how they couldn’t wait to “rip off one of his ears and eat it” when we got home. Ha!

Our next stop was the Musee Mechanique, just a few steps from the bakery. This place was packed to the gills with antique arcade games (plus a few newer ones). I traded three $5 bills in for quarters and the kids and I set off to explore. They favored pinball and air hockey, but I loved trying the *really *old machines — Laughing Sal from Playland-at-the-Beach, mechanical dioramas and some other random cool stuff.

As we were about to leave the museum, we spotted Alcatraz out the back door, so I asked my older son to pose for a photo holding it.

Our final activity was taking the cable car home. I asked the kids if they’d rather catch one of the antique street cars that run up and down the Embarcadero, but they wanted another go at the cable cars and didn’t mind the one hour wait to catch one. (I think it helped that I waited in the long line while they sat on a bench playing on their phones…)

This time they decided they wanted to ride on the running board of the trolley — a wise decision. I say you haven’t really ridden a cable car unless you’ve hung onto the side for dear life!

Check out the last few blocks of our journey!

Have you visited San Francisco? What would you recommend as a can’t-miss destination?