Spring Cleaning

I am so happy to see the sun shinning through the curtains in the morning over the past few days and the slightly lighter evenings, although it is still cold it is much more cheery and if there is one thing that the sunshine does it makes the dust and the clutter seem so much worse, in winter it somehow seems ok to let things creep up.

I'm naturally abit of a hoarder and am always the first to say we need to keep something, instead of happily toss it to one side, Darren however is a minimalist and has very little sentimental feelings and would rather the house only have the basics in it, this sometimes causes a clash of opinions!

Yet Spring brings out my minimist streak and I like the clean summery spaces with the curtains open and the light making everything look much nicer.

That's why this past week we've been cleaning up the living room, we found a bargain sofa on Ebay local to us, so much nicer than our old dark dingy one we'd had for several years.

It's amazing how a lighter sofa makes the whole room seem bigger and fresher,  rejuvenated by the sofa we had a bit of a declutter and rearrange, and the living room is looking quite nice, and its inspired me to take on the rest of the house.

The biggest problem being the childrens bedrooms, we seem to still have every toy we've ever brought, with three children that's alot of Christmas and Birthday presents!

I know I need to sort them out, go through the boxes and boxes of mismatched toys all across the boys room and organise them into things they still play with, those things which can be sold, or things we can pass to friends and family.

Not only does having a Spring clean and sort out make everywhere look better, it also gives a bit of extra income, which is always welcomed, I'm always surprised at the sale value of the smallest things, everyone seems to love looking online for collectible toys and figures, and you can see why when you can sell things and get them delivered the next day by parcelforce, it really is appealing to search out the missing figure of your set without even moving out the house.

Chloes room however is a whole other issue, she takes after me and is a serial hoarder.

This is the state of her bedroom this morning!!

Unfortnately tho, the majority of her beloved belongings are not of any worth at all, its all paper and crafts and bits and bobs lovingly stashed into old shoe boxes and tins, and if I even suggest sorting them out we have a 'but I neeeeeeeeed it' breakdown.

I think with chloe the only option is to get more cupboard storage - with doors, out of sight out of mind!

The Dark side of the internet - copied content!

The other day I found an email in my inbox from a kindly blogger, Jolene from Mumsgather informing me that she had come across a blog that was hosting copied content.

 Full blog posts that had been copied and pasted from her blog, my blog and several other blogs.

I visited the blog in question and sure enough several of my blog posts were there, copied completely. My Silent Sunday posts and reviews all with my personal photographs and general rambling... in fact ALL my posts were there!

So why would someone want to do this? and what can us bloggers, who are spending hours and putting lots of effort into our blogs writing original content do about it?

You can of course try to contact the blogger who has copied the content, but in most cases where whole posts have been copied and pasted, you are unlikely to get a favourable responce. (however  if only part has been copied, such as a photo into a original post, then more often than not the blogger will be very appologetic and remove or credit back to you quickly)

Many people say Imitation is a form of flattery, and yes I guess it is, but the reason for my blog posts being copied is more direct than that, it is simply because the copier wants to get money from Google Adsence.

You see Google Adsence has terms and conditions, one of which is that blogs must have decent content before adverts are allowed to be displayed, but some people simply do not have the know how to write a decent blog, so instead they steal other peoples post to make it look like they have a 'good' blog and then Adsence will accept them into the program.

Once they have their Adsence account authorised and set up the copiers manipulate the adcodes so that when you click anywhere on the blog you are opening up Adverts, this gaining them even more money as each click is counted as an advert click through.

They are directly using the hardwork from decent bloggers to get them traffic and clicks and make money, without the original bloggers permission.

So what can we do about this?

Well the first port of call is to inform Google Adsence, which is a simple process, fill out an online form and make them aware of the infringements. The form can be found here: https://support.google.com/adsense/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=violation_report&rd=2

You can report any site to google Adsence, even if you are not sure if they are hosting copyrighted material, you can report if the site is manipulating clicks in an unnatural way. But of course if you know the site is hosting copyrighted content without permission then this is sure reason to report a break of the Adsence terms and conditions.

You can also report the site to Blogger, that is if the site is hosted on blogger.  This is also a simple online form which you can find here : http://support.google.com/bin/request.py?contact_type=lr_dmca&dmca=text&product=blogger

When using this form you need to report individual links to each copied post, you can not just report the general site, so for the site above which has copied lots of my posts I have had to put in over 50 individual complaints linking to each individual URL. this is time consuming and very frustrating, but thankfully Blogger respond quickly and within 24hours I received email from them informing me they were disabling the content I had reported.

If the content has been copied onto a site not hosted by blogger you can  report them to Google. This won’t get the content removed from the site, but should get them removed from Googles listings.

As frustrating and time consuming as this is, we have to not be deterred, after all when we post things on the internet we always run the risk of someone coping our content, and using it in a variety of ways, and there really are no fail safe ways to prevent it, but we can stay vigilant, help each other out and report any sites we find who are using plagiarised posts.

A great way to check if your blog posts have been copied is via Google Image search, which helps locate duplicated photos where you search for specific files directly to see where abouts the photos appear on the internet.

Here is a good tutorial from A Mummy Too: How to find out if someone steals your image.

I hope this information is of use to someone, please feel free to share it to help people report these sites making money from other peoples work.

Easter Gift ideas - Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit puzzle

Last year we reviewed the lovely Rabbits Parade Jigsaw puzzle from Ravensburger, this puzzle was a huge hit, aimed at children 8 and above with 200 pieces this was a lovely puzzle for children and one my three still love to complete.

This year we have been sent another rabbit themed puzzle to look at as part of  my Easter Gift Guide.


This time it is a more challenging 500 piece puzzle which will take abit more thought and skill to complete.

This puzzle, Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit, is a great design made up of lots and lots of cuddly toy rabbits.  The pieces are small but well cut and fit together with the same great standard as other Ravensburger puzzles.

Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit is part of the Perplexing puzzle range of jigsaws, made up from photographs taken by British photographer Greg Shepherd.  Included in the box is a great information sheet and additional picture for reference .

The  puzzle has over 100 rabbits, each slightly different, some pink and fluffy bunnies, and others more realistic brown furry rabbits.

This is a great puzzle and a real talking point as you search out the next bunny to connect into the jigsaw, we have not quite finished it yet and are enjoying working together to get it completed.

If you are looking for a great Easter gift for the older children or even adults then this puzzle would be perfect. Priced around £7.99 from all good Ravensbrger stockists.

Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday

Easter Gift Ideas - An alternative Easter Chick!

Spring is starting to show and the sunshine has been shinning through the window today, I love Spring,  and can't wait until the children break up again as the Easter Holidays are perhaps my favourite school holiday.

But  as much as I love the fact the weather is starting to get warmer, and the daffodils are growing again and everywhere is brimming with new life, Easter is one of them funny sort of celebrations, I don't really like to buy lots of chocolate eggs, which are already filling up the shelves in every shop, I much prefer to buy other gifts at Easter, and I was thrilled to be offered the chance to look at some of the Gifts available this year.

I was sent a really lovely selection, including beautiful soft and cuddly lamb toys suitable for the very youngest  children as well as more modern toys which will appeal to the very oldest.

I am going to be putting up reviews individually for each product, so do look out for them over the coming days.

And to start off heres a closer look at the Angry Bird DarthVadar Plush toy which we really loved and think these are a perfect alternative to an Easter Chick for the older tweens!

Most children will be familiar with Angry Birds, the hugely popular computer game, where you fling birds at boxes or other structures to knock off pigs, and score points. Recently this craze has become even more appealing to children with the Star Wars addition, the same concept as the original Angry Bird game, but now involving  birds dressed as all the familiar Star Wars characters.

Everyone here are huge star wars fans, and so this plush 5" Darth Vadar character was instantly popular. A great quality perfectly detailed plush toy,  a great sized to throw and catch and set up our own Angry Bird games.

There are 5 StarWars Angry Bird plush characters to collect  including the ever popular Storm Trooper, Luke, Hans Solo and  Pinked faced Princess Leah.

These great themed toys also come in a range of sizes to suit everyones budget, small keyrings start at £5.99 the 5" plush character is £9.99 and the super sized 12" charcters are £19.99 a great range of toys that you can keep adding too for birthdays and Christmas.

You can see the full range on Characters website here:  Angry Bird Star Wars Toys

Easter Gift Ideas