robot love bento

has everyone checked out the new kawaii bento club HQ on squidoo?  it’s chock full of information, tutorials, and links to helpful products and books, and it’s also a great way for bento makers to come together as a community.

right now KBC is running an “i love robots” bento contest… robots are perfect for bento because they can be made from simple shapes.  if you haven’t submitted an entry yet, why not give it a try?

this is my entry — a boy and a girl robot in love.  they are made from purple potato, vegetarian ham, carrot, and cheese, and were cut free-hand using just a paring knife and only two actual cutters (the small and large circles i used to cut the robots’ eyes and hands — you could accomplish these same cuts with a regular and a jumbo sized straw).  for the heart on the boy robot’s chest, i used the freehand toothpick method, and i used nori punches for the facial details, and a bow pick for the girl robot’s accessory.  the robots are on top of plain white rice, which is layered over spicy stewed korean tofu.

the rest of my box, separated by lettuce baran, has some broccoli (topped with a vegetarian ham and cheese flower), some takuwan slices, a strawberry, some clementine wedges, a few peapods, and a trio of grape tomatoes.

here’s a close up shot of my robots… tee hee, they’re holding hands!

thanks to KBC for hosting this fun contest — i hope everyone takes the opportunity to let their imaginations and creativity run wild!