When it comes to school lunches, it's fair to say some can be pretty dull.
A sandwich, packet of crisps and an apple inside a plastic lunch box isn't really going to do much to excite a child - but a meal shaped like a magical mermaid just might.
This is just one of the lunches a creative mum from Texas has been sending her little one to school with.
Her fabulous creations are made out of different kinds of noodles and vegetables , meaning they look great and are healthy and the best part is that they don't take much work to achieve at all.
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The woman, named Vivienne, shared several snaps of her handiwork in a group on Facebook and also shared them on her Instagram account Bento Viv Love.
She wrote: "Fancy up your noodles with some arrangement.
"No special tools needed. I use chopsticks and a fork. Just a little bit of time to tweak the noodles making it into your desired shape."
She added: "Give it a try! You'll have fun!"
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As well as making a mermaid with a cucumber tail and noodle hair, the woman also made a bear with dumplings and a rabbit with different meats for ears, peas for eyes, a sweet corn nose and carrots for whiskers.
Her fellow parents absolutely loved her lunches, with one calling them "adorable" and another saying they were "amazing".
However someone else questioned whether the designs would be ruined by the time the child sat down to eat it at lunch after being "chucked about" in a backpack all morning.
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But Vivienne explained that the key was to make sure the lunch box was packed to the brim, meaning there was no room for it to all move about inside the box.
She said: "Packed it full and tight into the container.
"If you look at the mermaid, it was almost to the lid line. It stays in tact when my daughter opens it at lunch. Plus get a lunch bag that fits the container [in an] upright position so it won't get tilted or tossed too much during transportation."
