HP Virtual Focus Group - Week 5 - Decision Time......

So I'm aware that it's taken me more than 5 weeks to get all these reviews written and for that I would like to thank HP for sticking with me and being ever patient. For the last challenge it's time to embrace my creative side. I love making collages and have been doing these more and more. What I liked from the HP photo creations though was a collage cube. All you need to do is upload the pictures, the system places them for you and lets you edit them if necessary and you print out this:

Cut around it, follow the very simple instructions that print off at the edge of the template and you end up with this nifty little photo cube:

I still need to stick mine together and tidy it up but I'm sure my Mum & American Mom would really appreciate these as gifts or just to keep on their desks.

As it's now the final week I also get to decide which printer I want to keep and I have to say that it hasn't been an easy decision. 

The Kodak printer is unbeatable for the picture quality and the ease of printing the pictures off. 

The HP is smart, good looking and pretty much all touch screen and the only down side for me is that the pictures aren't quite such high quality as the Kodak. 

If I'm honest I probably wouldn't use it for printing pictures as I take so many it's much cheaper to have them done professionally. Therefore the HP is the winner for me and I'm very happy that I get to keep this little baby:

Please feel free to ask any questions as usual :-)

Book Review: The Sweetest Thing by Cathy Woodman

Jennie Copeland thought she knew the recipe for a happy life: marriage to her university sweetheart, a nice house in the suburbs and three beautiful children. But when her husband leaves her, she is forced to find a different recipe. And she thinks she’s found just what she needs: a ramshackle house on the outskirts of the beautiful Talyton St George, a new cake-baking business, a dog, a horse, chickens…

But life in the country is not quite as idyllic as she’d hoped, and Jennie can’t help wondering whether neighbouring farmer Guy Barnes was right when he told her she wouldn’t last the year.

Or perhaps the problem is that she’s missing one vital ingredient to make her new life a success. Could Guy be the person to provide it?

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I'd never heard of Cathy Woodman before but this sounded just like my kind of book and I'm always interested in discovering someone new! As the blurb above says the book is about Jennie starting a new life after a divorce with her 3 kids. She moves to a gorgeous house in what sounds like an idyllic village in Cornwall....jealous much? She also has a very gorgeous and rugged neighbour to make friends with.

I loved the main character and as the story is all told from her point of view that's probably a good thing! It's an easily readable book and flows very nicely and gently through the move and the setting up of Jennie's cake business. Each chapter is named for a completely delicious cake or dessert most of which made my mouth water at the thought....not sure it's such a great read when you are on Weightwatchers ;-)

The picture that is painted of the family is all very pleasant and the two girls sounds like absolute sweethearts. The only downside of the book for me was the son Adam who starts misbehaving and being generally horrible and I didn't like the way the situation was dealt with.....having said that I don't have any teenage boys so it may be true to real life!!

To celebrate the publication of The Sweetest Thing, Cathy is running a 'bake off'. The prize is £100 worth of Lakeland vouchers. To enter you just need to post a picture of your baked goods to  this Flickr group......again not very helpful when you are trying to slim.....yum!!!

So grab yourself a copy of the book for some inspiration and then get baking!!! Good Luck!!