An Angry Birds How-To

But first...

Ponyo! If you've never seen this movie, go watch. It's adorable. A little fish who becomes a girl, but more than that. We watched it last night, snuggled up together, and Princess loved it. So for her lunch today... Ponyo!

She has half a pepper turkey sandwich with a pair of flower picks and fruit leather letters. She also has green and purple grapes, cupcake Goldfish, carrot sticks, apple pieces, and grape tomatoes with ranch dressing. A few Swedish fish dance and swim here and there (Ponyo's sisters, of course). The grape tomatoes were a last minute stand in for the frozen yogurt fish I had originally planned. Princess nixed the yogurt while I was putting lunch together for her. Just not interested today.

For the letters I use Stretch Island organic fruit leathers. They make very effective and easy letters, and tasty, too! The 'negatives' and extra bits I tuck into a little plastic baggie and keep it in my purse for Beaker to snack on.

And now, Angry Birds!

I wanted a little something fun for G-man and Bean. I found these Angry Birds fruit snacks and Cheese Nips at the grocery store and thought, oooh, there ya go. So, Angry Birds lunches it was!

This is how I put this lunch together. Like most of the lunches I make, they're easier than they look.

First, start with your chosen dish. I like our Easy Lunchboxes most for things like this, because laying out cute scenes are great in these boxes. Plus, I just really love Easy Lunchboxes!

For the pigs' structure, I use leftover chocolate chip banana pancakes from last night. I started by putting a pancake and some scraps down to build a base. This isn't entirely necessary - you can build the structure without the base layer. I just put it in because I knew Bean and G-man would want a little more, and because it made things a little more secure and less likely to shift on the inside. I flattened a white paper muffin cup and laid it down to make a plain background.

Then I sliced up another pancake into strips and laid them out basic structure like on top of the base layer:

For the thieving pigs, I used green grapes. I just popped them in like they would be in the game (or, er, that is what they're supposed to look like, anyway). The silicone cups on the side help to support the structure, and also hold the rest of the lunch.

For the eyes of the pigs, I used white edible confetti sprinkles and edible food-grade marker. The eyes are held to the grapes using clear glitter cupcake decorator gel.

For the red Bird, I scooped red Jello with bits of fruit mixed in into the smallest section of the ELB. The eyes are made with Wilton's Candy Eyeballs and black edible decorator gel. For the beak, I used a tiny bit of carrot, cut into two triangles and arranged in a beak-like fashion with tweezers.

The silicone cups were filled with small carrot discs and Angry Birds Cheese Nips, and then a pack of Angry Birds fruit snacks were tucked in to the empty section of the dish. Done! Step back and enjoy your hard work. Sure to be a hit!