Hello, Hello Kitty!

In case you hadn't noticed, I tend to avoid licensed characters in my food art. Or when I do one, like with Pinkalicious or Are You My Mother?, it tends to be the idea of the character, rather than more exact. But this week's Bento of the Week theme at Bento Blog Network is Hello Kitty. And my daughter loves Hello Kitty... and I happen to own a Hello Kitty cookie cutter set... So I could try my hand at making an actual Hello Kitty...
Ugh. What a pain.

Strawberry, kiwi, and carrot flowers,
Hello Kitty ham and cheese (Laffy Taffy bow)

I used my large and small bento veggie cutters for the strawberries, kiwi, and carrots. The strawberries and carrots are in Hello Kitty cupcake liners (turned inside-out so she can see the design!) but the kiwi was too juicy, and I was afraid they would soak through the liner overnight. So I used a red silicone cup from Cost Plus World Market ($3/6!) instead.
For Hello Kitty herself, I use mini chocolate chips for the eyes, a sprinkle quin for the nose, and jimmies sprinkles for the whiskers. For the bow, I used a red Laffy Taffy from her Valentines Day loot. To make it easier to work with, I microwaved it for 10 seconds to soften it. Then I flattened it out (I used my fingers, but you can use a rolling pin, and powdered sugar to keep it from sticking, if necessary) and used a plastic Hello Kitty cutter I got in a set from the Sanrio store and pressed the Taffy up against the bow to get the general shape and design imprint, then used a steak knife to hack off the extra bits. And then pulled and pushed it back into shape again. A few times...

I used the face cutter on each slice separately, to reduce pulling and damage to the bread. My husband actually did the meat and cheese for me. And he cut a new slice of bread and moved all the features over "in exactly the same places" since I was interrupted by Baby E after putting the face together and we fell asleep, so the bread had started going stale. [Don't tell my sweeetie, but the bow is slightly off. But it was stuck down pretty good by the time I woke up, so not worth trying to rip it away to move it.]

I got the Hello Kitty bento box either from the Sanrio store or else from a Sanrio-type cutesy Asian gift shop at the mall. This lunch is smaller than normal because the dairy is on the sandwich, rather than the side, like when I do PB-based sammies, but also because we all have colds and my Little Missies aren't eating as much lately. So this cute little snack bento is probably plenty for lunch and afternoon snack.

She's been eating her "beautiful lunches" in the car so much, that now she expects one every time I fasten her seatbelt! So she asked for her Hello Kitty lunch to take on the ride to gym camp (the local My Gym does camps this week since many schools are out for MidWinter Break.) Even though she had just eaten breakfast! Sure enough, she only ate the candy off the sandwich. And a carrot flower. The rest I took back home until it was time to pick her up.
After camp she gobbled down the sandwich and asked for another. So I made half a ham and cheese sandwich (no fancy shapes) and cut it into half again, and stacked the sandwich squares to fit into her bento box. She was thrilled with her "biiiiiiiiig!" sandwich. She ate most of that one too (she left the crusts from one of the halves,) and tried the kiwi. She claimed to like it, but only ate one of the flowers. She ate a few strawberry flowers, and some carrots, but most ended up getting dumped on the floor when she knocked the whole thing over. Oh well.