Paper Doll Sandwich

Have you played with paper dolls before? Paper dolls, as the name implies, are made out of paper, and comes with different clothes and accessories for you to play around. It's one of my favourite thing to play with when I was young, I remember spending part of my pocket money buying them from school bookstore then. Do they still sell them now? I have not seen them around, but I've not actually search for them.


This sandwich that I am sharing today, is inspired by the paper dolls I love to play with as a child. The gal is actually a ham, cheese and cucumber sandwich, there's a slice of bread under the ham. I made her outfits and accessories out of ham, cheese, carrot, apple and bow pasta.


I shared this with LT for snack time in the morning, IT was at school then. We dressed the gal up in a few outfits, before we ate her, lol.


The first outfit we put on her.


This second one reminds me of Aladdin, lol.

I like this outfit the best.


The last outfit we put on her, I think she looks a little like a fairy in this. 

Peppa Pig & Where's Wally

For today's post, I'm sharing two food art I did during the June school holiday. The characters are  Peppa Pig and Where's Wally, they aren't related in any way, except that they both happened to originate from UK, lol. Peppa Pig is a British cartoon series and Where's Wally is created by an English illustrator.


Peppa Pig and George splashing around in the mud. My boys have never watched any Peppa Pig cartoon before. Peppa Pig wasn't so popular here when they were toddlers, they grew up watching Barney, Elmo, Hi-5, Bob the builder, Little Einsteins, etc.


We have a habit of tuning in to YES 933, one of the chinese radio station here, wherever we are in the car. And the station happened to be playing snippets from the cartoon, which they both found hilarious. They were curious as to what Peppa Pig looks like, so instead of googling for the picture,  I ended up making this food art to show them instead.


Peppa Pig and George were both made using ingredients like ham, bell peppers, red cabbage, cheese and nori, and I placed them on a slice of bread.


And this food art is Where's Wally. I think some countries know him as Where's Waldo instead. This was a sandwich served with sausages, cauliflower and seafood soup. I just found the perfect way to serve cauliflower to my boys, bake them with some oil and salt, they taste really good, can sprinkle on some cheese too.


I remembered reading Where's Wally when I was younger but my boys have no idea who Wally is. Uniqlo had a Where's Wally T-shirt collection for both kids and ladies a few months back. I immediately grabbed two for my boys, and subsequently went back to get myself one too, lol. And that's how my boys came to learn about the existence of Wally.


Ingredients used to make Wally were bread, ham, bell pepper, cheese and nori.

Domokun Bento

My boys came back with their report books today. IT did better than last year, he continued to score in his best subjects and has improved on his weaker ones. I had been worried about whether LT will fare well in primary school last year, he seemed slower than IT at the same age, and I've not spent much time coaching him as compared to IT. But he surprised me by doing quite well, in fact, his results is better than IT's primary 1 results 3 years ago. They are both capable of doing better, but nevertheless, I'm happy with their results this year. :)

The Giving Tree Bento

September 25th is Shel Silverstein Day and I'm joining a blog hop with my fellow bento friends from Bento Bloggers & Friends to pay tribute to the late author. Look for the image at the end of this post, it will link you to more bentos inspired by Shel Silverstein.

Even though I've only read one book, The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein, it's one of my favourite book and it left a lasting impression on me. I first learnt about The Giving Tree from my lecturer, he read us the book before the start of his lesson. I was deeply touched by it, I subsequently bought one for myself. Tears welled up in my eyes when I read the book again at home. I remember reading this book to both my boys when they were younger. Nowadays they usually read on their own, so this book has been forgotten on the bookshelf as it's not the usual genre they would pick to read.


I'm very glad that due to this bento, I took out The Giving Tree and read it to my boys and we got to discuss about the meaning of the story. The book in the photo is the exact same one I bought for myself many years ago, I kept it all along. :)


The little boy was made out of cheese, nori and capsicum, not exactly like the boy in the book, I just did a quick cut free-hand. The apple was a mini cherry tomato.


Main for this lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich and side dishes were broccoli and shrimp salad, kiwis and strawberries.

Now, are you ready to check out the next bento inspired by Shel Silverstein? Please click on the image above, and hop over to Chaos and Confections, to see what amazing creation Jessie has in store for you. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Bento Shopping in Singapore

This is a post that has been on my draft folder for sometime. I always get questions now and then on where to get bento stuff in Singapore, so I've always wanted to get this post done up. One of the reason I've been procrastinating is because I read in the news in July that Tokyu Hands will be opening in Singapore in September. Tokyu Hands is an amazing store, it's one of my must visit place every time I go to Japan, it is a lifestyle superstore and it carries quite a good range of bento gears. Therefore, I thought I should wait for it to open, as I wanted to include it in this post. However, I was rather disappointed after my visit last Sunday, bento stuff are very limited, more of that later in this post. They do have plenty of non-bento stuff that's fun to look at though.

Before I share the stores, please note that all the photos in this post were taken with my handphone or compact camera, so picture quality might be compromised. I will also update this post periodically should I have more current photos or discover more places selling bento stuffs worth mentioning.


One of my favourite store to visit is Daiso, a 100 yen store, but over here, everything is priced at SGD2. Click HERE for the current branches in Singapore. It's a great place to start, especially if you just started out in packing bento, the boxes are cute and affordable, as you can see from the photo above.


They also have lunch bags, as well as thermal lunch bags.


Bento utensils set.


Rice moulds for making sushi, sushi bamboo mats and nori punchers. I've did a review on their nori punchers a long time back, you can click HERE to check out that post. It's an old post, but I still hold the same opinion as what I wrote back then.


Bento picks and barans, they do have a wider variety sometimes.


Not exactly bento, but thought I'll share a picture of these silicone utensils as well. I know some people uses these silicon trays for freezing yoghurt, which is a great idea.


Food cups for separating your food in your bento box.


Drawing pens, where you can pour in some tomato sauce, chocolate sauce, etc, to draw on your bento.


The second place I'm sharing is a Japanese supermarket called Meidi-ya. It's located at Liang Court. The supermarket carries some bento boxes.


Thermal bento boxes and water bottles.


You can also find lots of Japanese ingredients there. I'm just focusing on these 3 types of furikake, as I've been asked questions about where to buy these before. The first one on the left is a pack of furikake, which contains tiny pink flowers, you can see the flowers in this bento HERE. The one in the middle is a sushi seasoning that can colour your rice pink, click HERE for an example of how my rice turned out. It's a alternative to sakura denbu, which can also colour your rice pink easily, my boys like the taste of this sushi seasoning better that sakura denbu. Lastly, the pack on the right is a pack of deco furi that contains sachets that can be used to colour your rice in four different colours, pink, orange, yellow and green. Daiso also sells something similar. (I'll update the photo of the one Daiso sells soon.)


At Liang Court, there is also a 100 yen shop called Nanairo, it's located at the same level as Meidi-ya. You can find some bento picks and bento boxes there, not much. Stocks are rather erratic though, not many bento picks when I took this photo, but sometimes they have more. I did not get a picture of the bento boxes as the staff was arranging that shelve. There were just a couple of Mickey Mouse bento boxes that day.


There's another store at Liang Court to check out for bento stuff. It's a bookstore called Kinokuniya. Photo above shows Rilakkuma bento boxes, cutlery sets, cups, rice mould and nori set, etc.


Hello Kitty bento boxes.


Totoro bento boxes.


Sentimental Circus bento boxes.


These onigiri bento boxes are from Shinzi Katoh, a famous artist in Japan. I own two such boxes from his collection, the designs are lovely.


The bookstore also sells bento books.


These are charaben books.


Finally, the bento products available at Tokyu Hands, which is located in the mall Westgate. The range here is quite miserable.


Quite a range of thermal bottles, and that's all they have for the bento section. Such a disappointment. The baking section was even more pathetic, I did not bother to take a photo. I was hoping to see the natural colourings, wax paper, cookie cutters and chocolate pens at the baking section but they could not be found. Hopefully they will expand and bring in more bento and baking items in the future. However, if you are not looking for bento stuff, Tokyu Hands is still worth a visit for other interesting products the store carries.


Tokyu Hands has another store at Orchard Central, the bento section there has slightly more variety. They have some bento tools there, not many though.


Bento boxes and thermal food jars.



They also have some cutleries, bento bags, barans, food cups and sandwich moulds.


Managed to snap some photos at Sanrio Gift Gate, so I'm updating . They sell Sanrio bento boxes, mainly Hello Kitty. There are quite a few branches, this one is at Parkway Parade.


There are thermal containers and bottles as well.


This is another shop, Character + Design, at Parkway Parade. There's one at Bugis Junction, but the last I checked, they no longer carries bento stuff.


Summiko Gurashi bento boxes.


Rilakkuma bento boxes.


This one is a $2 shop called Tokutokuya, at Kallang Leisure Mall. There's another branch at Changi City Point, but it's much smaller.


They have bento accessories that you can't find at Daiso. The picks and small cutters are worth buying.



Onigiri moulds, sausage cutters, nori punchers, etc.


Some Kumamon bento stuff.


And if you are looking for the wooden lunch plates that I used previously, I found some similar ones at Tokutokuya. These are not priced at $2 though.

Here's a couple more places you can find bento boxes in Singapore, list is non-exhaustive:

• The Story Begins, located at Westgate. - bento boxes and cookie cutters.
• Kai Kai Gifts, located at The Central - mainly Hello Kitty bento boxes and tools.
• Character + Design, located at Parkway Parade. There's one at Bugis junction, but it no longer carries bento stuff when I went down last week. - Hello Kitty, Rilakkuma bento boxes and some bento tools.
• Muji - bento boxes
• Departmental stores like Isetan, John Little, Robinsons, Metro, BHG - bento boxes.