I wish I could claim to be the crafty genius who came up with the idea for putting puffy stickers on toothpicks or plastic cocktail picks to create homemade bento picks but honestly, it’s been done so many times that I couldn’t even tell you where it originated from.

I can however show you my favorite way to make bento picks.

I really think you guys are going to love it.

First though, in case there are those of you who aren’t familiar with the puffy sticker/toothpick methods, I’m going to walk you through each one.

I’ll also explain why I don’t like either of them.

Seems like I’m always rebelling against something on this blog. Today it’s puffy stickers, tomorrow – who knows?

There are two ways to make food picks using puffy stickers.

Method 1 : The puffy sticker is hot-glued directly onto the toothpick or plastic cocktail pick. Once dry, it’s ready to use.

Method 2: Mirror images of stickers (like the set pictured below) are stuck together with the toothpick or plastic cocktail pick in between.

My first issue is with the glue. It can be messy and you have to wait for it to dry.

You also need to press the stickers for a minute or two to keep the bottoms together while the glue sets.

And if you don’t use glue, the bottoms of your stickers will come apart. You can see this happening in the picture at the very top of this post.

It’s not a big deal but as a perfectionist, this really bothers me.

Now let’s talk about my favorite way.

I love to use scrapbooking stickers.

They’re almost always 40%-50% off at my local craft store. I think I paid about $1.60 for those googly-eyed cuties up there.

The reason that I love using scrapbooking stickers for this project is because they all have a piece of sticky foam on the back so I can just run my toothpick right up into that foam and it’s not going anywhere.

See…

Quick and easy.

No waiting for glue guns to warm up or messy glue to dry and then peeling it off of your fingers later.

This takes two seconds and it’s done.

You can also just stick a toothpick onto the back, like I did with the pick on the left, and it will hold just fine.

Pretty cute, right?

I love them.

Camryn has a field trip on Halloween so I’ll be packing some of these cute picks in her lunch that day.

If they don’t make it home, it’s no biggie. They’re disposable anyway.

So if you’re looking for a cheap and easy way to spruce up your kiddos lunches for Halloween, or really any day, I hope you’ll give this method a try.

Remember, these work great as cupcake toppers too!