What is Swagbucks?

Swagbucks is a site that basically rewards users for spending time online. With this site you accrue a virtual currency for doing the things that you might normally do online – using search, watching videos, chatting, playing games, doing polls and surveys etc etc – and you earn from doing it.

Swagbucks has been running in the US since 2007 and is one of the country’s top 100 trafficked websites. Since 2007, the company has paid out more than $26m in rewards to its members – and now Swagbucks is available in the UK!

What is the challenge?

The competition is simple, whichever blogger earns the most Swagbucks by 5pm on December 14, 2012 will win a fabulous £250 gift card.

So I can earn these virtual pennies in a couple of ways, by searching the internet, spending time online, doing little quizzes and playing games and I can appeal to my friends, family, loved ones, blog readers etc to sign up and have a go themselves.

getbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)

All you need to do is click this code: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/MuminTheMadHouse and follow the easy instructions – Please

Come on something for nothing, must be a great idea!

I decided that the easiest way to store it would be to fold it all the same size and store in some new baskets which I purchased from Homebase for this specific task.  They were £14.99 each and should last for a long time.  But how best to fold it all? I remember seeing on Sew Justine Sew last year that see stored her larger fabric on comic boards, but most of my fabric are smaller pieces and I didn’t have enough storage to hold it all on comic sized sheets.  So I decided to re purpose something we already had, a ream of printer card.

1. The card is a4 sized
2. Fold it in half to make it A5 size.
3. Lay out your fabric (I have used this for all my fabric from fat quarter to 4 yards)
4. Fold the bottom of the fabric over the card and crease to the end of the fabric
5. Do the same with the top
6. then wrap the fabric over the card
7. continue to do so until the fabric is all wrapped around the card.

I then placed the fabric in the baskets and on to an existing wrack that we already have.  I used some hampers to store quilt filling and stuffed toy filling on top of the unit.  I like using the hampers as you can squash it all in and then fasten it!

I would love to know how you store your fabric and other items for crafting.

Last month as part of the Tots100 Book Club  Becky from Baby Budgeting recommended The Death and Life of  Charlie St Cloud for me and I am really looking forward to reading it.  

Sometimes you stumble on a book that you wouldn’t normally read, but it comes at the right time and that is my book recommendation.  A non-fiction

 book that had a significant impact on me throughout 2011 (which was a hard year of firsts after the death of my mum).  The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  This is a thought provoking read, which helped me refocus on the things that matter and inspired me to try and find the small things that make me happy.

My well thumbed copy!

It is much more than a self help book, it talked to me in a non flowery way.  I stopped focusing on the negatives, leaving much more room for the positives.  As someone who has suffered with depression in the past and been through cognitive behavioral therapy it really compounded previous learning and enabled me to make practical changes.

I have learned that by doing good, you feel good.  That small changes, make big difference and that it is my right to be happy.

Some info about the book club:

The Tots100 Book Club is where bloggers share their favourite stories. Every month, the Tots100 invites 10 bloggers to tell us about stories that have moved and inspired them – and to share their favourite books with a nother blogger. Each month, they’ll be publishing a round-up of the Book Club’s recommendations over on the Tots100 site, meaning you need never be short of great reading inspiration again!

Throughout their lives I have been keen to encourage independent play.  Here they are counting their pennies in their jar.  I didn’t ask them to do this, but they both love money and they love counting.  So we talked about how many pence in a pound, the different shapes and sizes on money and also the fact that the queen was on all coins.  We then used the coins like tiddliwinks.  For me this was a fun hour of play, which was driven by them and all I did was answer their questions and joined in their games.

As a family we love board games and have a weekly family game night, where choose a game to play and just enjoy each others company, but the boys are learning through playing these games.  They learn numbers on the die, they use their counting skills to move places, their reading skills to check the instructions or read any cards involved and also their creativity depending on the game we choose.

There are some great mummy blogs which focus on play including Nurturestore, Playing by the book, Red Ted Art, Thinly Spread and BabyBudgeting to name just a few.

This month, over at the Tots100, we’re running a blog hop sponsored by MEGA Bloks. Share your thoughts on learning through play and you can win a family trip to Drayton Manor theme park along with lots of new toys. What’s more, five bloggers who take part in the competition will become official toy reviewers for MEGA Bloks for 2011. Head over to the Tots100 blog for more details.