Lunchbox Doodles

February 26, 2014 12:03 PM

"Q: What is the story behind Lunchbox Doodles and how long have you been doing it? A: It really started as a result of the fond memories I have of opening my lunch at school and reading notes my mother would place inside. While I can't remember specifically what they said, they had an impact on me. They served as a reminder that my parents were thinking of me even when I wasn't with them."
posted by ColdChef (9 comments total)

Love this. I use a sharpie and draw / trace little pictures on my kids' sandwich bags whenever I can. (I try to set aside 10 minutes every Sunday to do a bunch of them for the week.) It's a nice little hug for them from Daddy during the day, and they say they really like opening up their lunchboxes to new drawings in the cafeteria.

I have pretty much no artistic skills whatsoever, but have found that their coloring books contain tons of traceable pictures.
posted by zarq at 12:08 PM on February 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Previously
posted by alon at 12:13 PM on February 26, 2014

Yah, I've begun doing this... though I do them each morning as I make my son's lunch (they're not so elaborate). The artwork isn't great, but it's fun for both of us I think, a reminder during his day of good stuff we've shared lately. This week it's been all about the LEGO movie, which we saw last weekend (highly recommended across the board. The game based on the movie is really good too.) Awesome, indeed.
posted by emmet at 12:15 PM on February 26, 2014

When my brother was a kid, the doodles were on his eyepatches. And they kicked ass.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:12 PM on February 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've done this for my kid since she was in Kindergarten and she enjoys it even though she's now in 7th grade (I ask her at the beginning of each year if she wants me to continue). Although I might have to downgrade my description to lunchbox "scribbles" if those are "doodles". I put a few of my more recent (i.e. ones I am not frantically half-sleep scribbling as I pack her lunch in the morning) favorites on flickr.
posted by mikepop at 1:16 PM on February 26, 2014

David Laferriere has been drawing on lunch bags since 2008.

That's about the level of art that I do for my kid. I'm an illustrator, but at 6:30 in the morning half-way into my first coffee that's about the best you'll get out of me. We actually use plastic wrap rather than sandwich bags, so there's the added challenge of producing a smooth surface on one side of the sandwich, with no wrinkles or overlapping wrap. I particularly like irregularly-shaped bread slices because they give me a challenging shape to fill in. The multi-bumps from braided egg bread is just madness! (Eight-headed monster? Or flip and do eight-wheeled monster truck?).

Don't laugh at me childless people…
posted by Kabanos at 1:28 PM on February 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

I used to draw on brown lunch bags, until my kids started using thermal bags for their lunches. Dunno why I never thought to write on the baggies...
posted by davejay at 4:00 PM on February 26, 2014

This just makes me sad because I lack any artistic ability at all. I send notes in my kids' lunches, but they're nowhere near as cool as these. One time I drew a picture of a cat, but I felt the need to label it "CAT" because I'm not sure they would have figured it out otherwise.
posted by Dojie at 1:04 PM on February 27, 2014

Well, add me to the club. I've been at it for a year and a half, and as a person whose day job does not involve graphic creativity (I'm a lawyer), there's great pleasure in having to make at least two little artworks a day. The problem is that I like it so much, I sometimes start when I get my kids to bed and spend way too much time on it.
posted by Presidente de China at 1:02 PM on March 3, 2014