Book reviews. Yay or Nay?

You are going to be seeing quite a few book reviews coming up.

My question though is this:

Do you want to see them here?  Or must I create a separate blog specifically for book reviews?

Please leave a comment for me.

I do a review and you get to win!

A little while ago I got an email from Lori at {FLD Products}.  She wanted to introduce me to their product range and to see if we could collaborate.

What struck me first about them is that instead of just sending me a press release they asked to meet me in person, which made me very keen to meet with them.

So on Monday I met up with Lori and her co-founder Jonathan and they took me through the range and explained how they came to be, how they work, the manufacturing process, basically all about these nifty bags and sleeves.

I mentioned that I was getting the new iPad Mini to take with me to Israel and they offered me a beautiful pink sleeve, its the newest item in their product range and not only does it fit the iPad Mini but it also fits the Samsung Galaxy Note II and the Google Nexus 7.

sleeves

Its one of the things I love about the range, its versatile! My mom, who has the Samsung, was eyeing out my cover yesterday for her device.  Good thing its her birthday next month 😉

The other thing I love about the sleeve is the material.  Its padded quite thickly but light.  Thick enough to protect my iPad (I’m a terrible klutz when it comes to dropping my devices) but light enough to not add any significant weight to the device when its in my hand bag.

I also love the fact the inside is made of a micro fibre that cleans the device as you insert or extract it and also protects from scratches.

bag

The only downside I have, is that once I remove the device its unprotected (remember my klutz tendencies) and Im not sure that the sleeve is big enough to fit the device if it has a protective case on it.

Both the sleeves and the bags have extra pockets and spaces to keep, phones, cables, mice, pens and anything else you might need with you.

Overall I love the sleeve and Im keen on getting a laptop bag too for my Air, as soon as I am back from Israel.

So now comes the part where you can win!

Take a look at the FLD Products {web page} then follow the prompts below in the Rafflecopter widget.

The competition closes at midnight on 31 July 2013 and I will notify the winner by email and on the blog.  FLD Products will deliver the prize directly to the winner. Competition only open to those living in South Africa.

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’m an #HPmum – Part 2

First off, my apologies for the delay!

Lets get to it shall we?

One of the things that made me bounce when HP asked if I wanted to review the machine was the ability to print from any computer via email.  Email?  Yup, email.  You can email a document from any machine anywhere in the world to the unique email address you crate for the printer!  It took all of 10 minutes to create the email address and once that was done I could print from anywhere and the pages were waiting for me when I got home.  For someone like me who forgets what I did 5 minutes ago this is a huge thing, I think about printing a document, I print it. Easy peasy.  I could also tell Paul to email a document directly to the printer instead of waiting for it to come through my email then printing, saves a lot of time 🙂

Oh, one of the nicest features is the Facebook application.  You get a unique code, you enter the code into Facebook and wham bam thank you ma’am, you can see all your albums directly on the printer and then choose which pictures you want to print (especially helpful if you have lost the original images on your computer, hypothetically speaking of course).

The machine also connects to a host of other web apps such as Crayola, DreamWorks, HP Quick Forms, Web Sudoku and so many more.

Aaron and I printed out colouring pages from Crayola.  We printed Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon masks, colouring pages, door hangers and character models from Dream Works as well as super cool paper airplanes that we cut out and folded together.

Here are some of the cool crafts we made!

Crafts print out in full colour with instructions!
Lots of cutting
3D!
There are about 5 different paper plane designs
I cannot tell you how many of these we have made in the last 2 months!!
Just for fun 🙂 Cute mini fortune cookies and take out box

My entire family has made such good use of this machine.  From keeping Aaron entertained to Paul sending me important documents to scanning my paperwork and printing photos to keep the grandmas happy.

I can highly recommend this as a great home printer!

The HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-One printer is available at all good computer and electronic stores at a recommended retail price of R1899.00

I’m an #HPmum

At the beginning of December HP asked me to test out their new Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-One printer.

We don’t have a printer at home so I jumped at the chance to test this one out.

In short, I fell in love.

Lets get the technical stuff out of the way first shall we?

All in one:

Print. Scan. Copy. eFax. Web. – It does everything (well almost, a cup of coffee would be nice)

Dimensions:

45.5cm (w) x 45cm (d) x 22cm (h) – Compact and pretty, it fits perfectly on my home desk.

Print Speed:

From 13.5ppm up to 34ppm black and from 9ppm up to 33ppm colour – Super fast!

Connectivity:

Integrated WiFi and USB High Speed – Fantastic for my home where our router is in our bedroom not near my home desk.

Ink:

The Photosmart 7510 uses 5 individual cartridges – HP 178 Black, Photo, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow – They also come in XL

Now, on to the fun stuff, what I managed to do with this fantastic machine 🙂  After writing up this post, I realised I had a lot to say, so I will be breaking it up into a few parts… This is Part 1

First of all, setting up the machine took us no more than 10 minutes.  And part of that was me trying to remember what the hell my WiFi password was.

The 10.9cm touch screen was a breeze to use and once we had connected to the WiFi we started having fun.

The first thing I did was test out the photo printing.

Holy moly!  Who needs to go to a lab to print photos?  It was so easy and quick.  The photos are beautiful.  I used the HP Premium Plus and HP Advanced paper that came in my press kit.  You wouldn’t know they were printed on a home printer.

It certainly made printing photos of the kids for my mom and mom in law a breeze.  We also got to put up new photos on our photo wall within days of taking the pics, it usually takes us years (no jokes) because its a pain to go and have them printed.

The next thing I tried out was the scan function.

It took me a while to figure out how to scan using my Mac, and I realised in the end it was a connectivity issue (make sure WiFi is on!) but once I had it figured it was so simple.

You can scan single images from the glass or multiple page documents from the document feed on top of the machine.  The document feed takes up to 25 pages at a time and scans double sided too.  Scanning was very quick and the scanned image was clear and colour perfect.

The one feature I didnt try is the eFax function.  Mostly because I cannot think of a single person or instance where I would need to send a fax.  That being said, had I needed to send a fax I would need to set up my online fax service with HP’s 3rd party provider, eFax.  This can all be done from the printer itself.  The first 20 pages sent and the first 20 pages received are free!

Look out for Part 2 tomorrow where I talk about emailing documents to the printer from wherever I am (I know right, so much fun!) and I will also show you some of the amazing projects and crafts Aaron and I made using the HP Photosmart printer!

Pick n Pay Real Baby – A Review on nappies

So our little bundle was 3 weeks old last Sunday.  Here are some updates.

  • She is growing.
  • She no longer fits into most of her newborn clothing.
  • She is now wearing mostly 1-3m clothes.
  • She barely fits into #1 nappies.
  • That means it was time to try out our Pick n Pay Real Baby #2 nappies!

I was very impressed with the quality of the nappy.  Although I thought it was a bit stiff and cardboardy between the legs, Faith didn’t seem to mind at all.  We only had one leak and I think it was because mommy was half asleep when I put the nappy on and I didn’t fit it properly.  My only real complaint is that the tabs are not stretchy and I have come to expect nappies to have stretchy tabs.

All in all we love our Pick n Pay nappies and will definitely be buying more soon!

Pick n Pay Real Baby – A Review

As I said before I wanted to keep most of the Pick n Pay products I received to review for when our baby was born, this happened a little sooner than expected and we have been using the products for just over a week now.

My overall impression is that these are great quality products at a reasonable price.

But lets break it down shall we…

 

Junior #5 nappies

We started using these for Aaron at night mostly as he still isn’t fully potty trained.  The quality of the nappy and the materials used rival any of the big brands on the market.  I found the fit of the nappy very good and the retention (liquids and solids) excellent.  I did notice a bit of a rash that has formed around the waist band area, we are treating it with rash cream and hopefully it is unrelated to the nappy itself.

 

Cotton Wool Pleats

I like the idea of the cotton wool pleats.  They are easy to tear off but I found that the size of each pleat is too big for our needs and halving one pleat makes it too small.  I also didn’t like that at each tear section the cotton wool has a hard edge.  In terms of what cotton wool is supposed to do, I have no complaints.

 

Wipes

I LOVE the wipes.  The smell is subtle and pleasant.  They were easy to remove one at a time.  They have just the right moisture content that I like.  We usually use Pigeon brand wipes and the Pick n Pay wipes are the closest I have come to that quality.

 

Cotton Buds for Baby

I have never used a cotton bud for a babies ears but I found that these buds were just perfect for dipping into surgical spirits and cleaning Faith’s umbilical stump.

 

Nappy Cream

Personally I did not like the nappy cream.  Its a perfectly serviceable cream but I found it no different from a body or hand cream.  For me a bum cream needs to be more of a paste, a barrier cream between baby’s bum and the wet in her nappy.  I found that this cream absorbed almost immediately and that Faith started to get a small rash on her bum so I stopped using it and went back to our usual Fissan Paste.

 

Baby Lotion

I adore the baby lotion.  Again, it smells lovely and it absorbs beautifully.  Faith particularly likes it when I use it after her bath for a massage.

 

Body Wash

I love the body wash.  A little goes a long way with this product and we have used it every single bath Faith has had.  In fact I like it so much Im tempted to use it for my own bath tonight.  I also used this to wash her hair and so far it has left her hair silky and smelling beautiful.

 

So far those are the products we have used.  As we use the other products we will let you know what we think.

And just because I can and I know you will all go awwwwwww, here is a pic that the very talented Jenty took of our beautiful girl 🙂

Pick n Pay Real Baby

A little while ago Pick n Pay asked me if I would like to review their new range of baby products.

With an active 3 year old and a new baby on the way I jumped at the chance.

This is what arrived for us last week:

  • 1 x pack Junior #5 nappies (46) – R119.99
  • 1x pack Mini #2 nappies (44) – R82.99
  • Cotton Wool Pleats (100g) – R13.99
  • Cotton Puffs (50g) – R13.99
  • Wipes (72) – R27.99
  • Cotton Buds for Baby (50) – R10.99
  • Aqueous Cream (250ml) – R12.99
  • Petroleum Jelly (250ml) – R13.59
  • Baby Soap (100g) – R5.29
  • Nappy Cream (75ml) – R15.99
  • Baby Lotion (200ml) – R18.99
  • Body Wash (400ml) – R23.99
  • Baby Oil (200ml) – R17.29
  • Baby Powder (300g) – R17.69
  • Hygiene Liquid (500ml) – R24.99

*prices taken from the Pick n Pay Online Store.

I was totally blown away by the package that arrived for us.  The best part is that these are not sample sizes but the actual sizes you will find in store.

The eye catching yellow, white and grey packaging is great, and Aaron was all over the bottles and tubs naming the cute animal drawings on each product.  I was excited to see that all the creams, lotions and powders have chamomile extract in them, this soothing extract is wonderful to help put niggly babies at ease (and its smells great too).

I must admit we haven’t tried any of the products yet.  The reason being that we had just opened a new pack of nappies for Aaron and we are waiting to finish those before opening the Pick n Pay ones.  As for the other products, poor Aaron is missing out, Im being selfish and hanging onto those for theSQL.  She should be here in the next 3 weeks and I am so grateful I dont need to buy any toiletries for her now.

I did open almost all the bottles and tubs and they smell divine, the chamomile extract is delish and Im sure its going to be very soothing for the baby.

Watch this space for our review of the Junior nappies in the next few days…