Farmersgirl Kitchen

Friday, 3 May 2013

Vistaprint Photobook - Review

Have you have looked at photobooks in online advertising and thought, what a great idea they are? I have, but have never quite got round to uploading my photos and purchasing a photobook.

We were recently on a river cruise in the south of France so I was delighted when Vistaprint contacted me and asked me to review one of their photobooks, and even more delighted when I received the photobook, what a superb memento of our holiday. Vistaprint is Europe's largest printing specialist with a wide range of products.

There are two ways you can work with Vistaprint, you can either upload the photos directly the online photo editor, or download the special software. I decided to download the software which turned out to be really easy to use and I liked being able to work offline.There are various different sizes of photobook with different options for the cover and paper. You can have your photos automatically placed in your book or choose where to place them yourself. I chose to place my own photos in the book. Sometimes I used the provided templates but it's easy to move them around or delete them from the page and add a full page photo. I was also delighted with the way you could place a photo in the background and it would show faded.

Of course, I had far too many photos of food! Which is why I created this double page packed with photos from a huge food hall in Lyon.

I also used a photo of a plate of food as a background for this photograph in the dining room of the river boat.

I chose the option of a photo cover and, as well as a photo on the front cover, there is space for a a photo on the back cover. The photobook I chose was the 'Large Landscape' which is 28cm x 21cm and currently costs £10.49.

People use photo books for a variety of things, such as capturing pictures of their holidays, creating wedding albums, as well as people using them as a creative way to keep hold of their precious recipes. Because you can insert images and text, it's a nice way to compile all your favourite recipes into a nice presentable book. You can then give them to friends as gifts, VistaPrint have even heard of one mum sending her daughter off to university with a basic recipe book!

Not only can you make photo books with Vistaprint there are lots of other ideas like calendars mugs, photo magnets and even a photo iPhone cover. If you are a blogger you might also want to have a look at their business cards to help promote your blog at foodie events.

I reviewed the process of making a photo book with Vistaprint and received the finished book in return. I was not paid for this review and all opinons are my own.

Labels: Food, France, photo book, photos, Portraits of Southern France, Vistaprint

Thursday, 4 April 2013

Foodie Haul from France

We didn't have much space in our cases to bring back many foodie items, next time I'm taking a bigger case! However here are the things I managed to squeeze in and fortunately not a single glass bottle or jar was broken in transit.

The two tins on the left contain Herbes de Provence and Sel de Camargue aux 3 poivres (salt from the Camargue region with three kinds of pepper). I love the tins as well as their contents. Next is the Truffle Oil Spray not quite sure how I'm going to use this yet, any suggestions very welcome.

The two small bottles are miniatures of Poire William Eau de Vie (alcohol flavoured with pear) and a Chestnut liqueur, the large bottle is Framboise (Raspberry) liqueur which is divine and really tastes of fresh raspberries. It makes a great Raspberry Kir when served with chilled dry white wine.

There is a jar of Dijon Mustard bought in the cheese shop in Beaune which I showed you in the last photos, and there is a bag of culinary lavender which I'm looking forward to using.

In front of the bottles is some nougat and a bag of Praline de Lyon which is an almond praline made with coloured sugar, I'm hoping to use that to recreate some of the baking decorated with the praline that I saw in the markets and patisseries in Lyon.

Last but not least, I bought a lovely provencal style tablecloth which will be featuring in my photographs for some time before we actually get to use it on the table!

Labels: Chestnut Liqueur, Dijon Mustard, Food, France, French, Herbes de Provence, Poire William, Praline de Lyon, Sel de Camargue, Truffle oil

Friday, 29 March 2013

French Foodie Foties #1

I've been in the South of France for the past week. Eating delicious food and taking photographs of more delicious food which I can share with you. The photograph above show some of the delicious patisserie on sale in Beaune in the Burgundy region of France.