I agreed to make my 8-year-old a "fancy bento" once a week (they get a "regular" homemade lunch the rest of the week). This week's bento includes a salmon and black sesame seed onigiri, steamed broccoli with Japanese barbecue sauce, sweet red pepper, jumbo blueberries, rolled egg omelet, Babybel cheese, and two chocolate wafer cookies.
It wasn't too bad to make time-wise (15 minutes?) since I had rice and rolled egg omelet in the freezer and leftover fish and broccoli from dinner. I have a gallon-size "stash" bag of pre-made onigiri (no seaweed), frozen rice, rolled egg omelet, and other bento-size portions (red pepper and onion confit, dry red bean curry, etc.) in the freezer to streamline bento-making. JustBento.com has a good post about the concept of "johbisai" if you want ideas or inspiration.
by Lorena_in_SD