Abusive? Moi?

What a surreal evening I had yesterday!  As many of you know, I usually post a link to my blog on my Facebook page,  and a friend sent me a message yesterday teatime to say that when she clicked on the link it had sent her a warning to say that it (my blog entry) had been reported as potentially abusive!  When I asked a few others to check for me, most of them also received the same warning - although some (on Chrome and Firefox) didn't, and a resourceful few managed to ignore the warning and read the blog post anyway!  It had been shared on two other pages that I know of, and on one page the link refused to work at all, while the link on the other page worked easily with no warning!  All too strange for my non-technical brain!  The big question was: was it a Facebook glitch or someone playing a prank?  I found it quite funny, given that the post was about Housework: it is conceivable that some reader was either bored half to death or deeply offended (I jest) - but then a link to another blog post seemed to show the same warning, and it wasn't even about housework!  All very odd.  Anyway, it seems to be sorted now, but I just want to say thank you to you gorgeous people who helped with the "investigation", joined in with the indignation, and ultimately logged on to my blog so many times that the reported post and yesterday's test post turned out to be the most viewed in September!  You are all wonderful :) 

So anyway, on to today (assuming no warning is given that stops you logging on this time)... our usual lazy Pyjama Monday wasn't quite to order today as I had to take one of the boys out to see the doctor.  Happily, our awesome lodger was able to stay at home with the other two who had lots of fun making badges and decorations, playing with our Slimy Slugs kit, dressing up and generally having fun :)  After that, once the patient and I were home again, we all enjoyed what has been my favourite craft so far, in terms of simplicity and finished result.  A friend shared a link (sorry, I can't find it now) to a blog where a stained glass window had been made over time by glueing tissue paper directly on to a window.  I commented to my friend that as we rent, I'd probably find a way of doing it onto sticky-backed plastic so it wasn't so hard to remove when we move house - and so we could keep it for posterity!  Well, today was the day (step by step guide included at end of blog if you fancy having a go)...

 Window art: Eldest's fish and Middle's slug

Mummy and Youngest's Heart (he enjoyed it, but needed quite a bit of help)

Also today we had computer time: Eldest on MathsWhizz, Middle on Reading Eggs and Youngest on the CBeebies website. Eldest is still working his way through our set of Horrible Histories books that we've had for years, but he's only recently discovered. It just goes to show - it's all about waiting until they're ready. He wasn't interested for ages but is loving them at the moment, and really enjoys quizzing us from whichever book he's currently reading (today it was the Barmy British Empire). Oh, and we mustn't forget the baking: Youngest made some yummy cinamon shortbread today, cut into owl shapes...

There were a couple of things that I wanted to share from the weekend too... while we were in the car travelling somewhere, Middle, who hd been quiet for a while, suddenly announced that two-times-tables are just the same as three-times-tables really!  Well, Eldest wanted to correct him immediately (it's a first-born thing), but I asked Middle out of interest why he thought so.  It turns out he had done the two-times table in his head as far as six, and then the same with the three-times table.  Well that led to a lengthy conversation that covered not only the afore-mentioned times tables, but also odd and even numbers, addition techniques, patterns and other mathematical concepts.  My little man who had developed such a strong antipathy to Maths while at school was actually spontaneously working it out in his head for pleasure, enjoying finding patterns and such!  It was a lovely HE Mummy moment :)  Another one was noticing how Eldest's vocabulary is increasing rapidly, thanks at least in part to his love of Calvin and Hobbes (I included the link there in case anyone exists out there who has missed this genius comic-strip)... I particularly enjoyed it when Daddy came downstairs marvelling that Eldest had just accurately explained to him the meaning of the word "anthropomorphise" :)
 
So that was our day (and some of our weekend)!  And for anyone who fancies trying out our window art, here are the guidelines to our craft that I promised earlier (sorry I didn't take photos of every stage - we got a bit involved!)...

Stained-glass effect Window art
resources: sheets of sticky-backed plastic; tissue paper in assorted colours; black paper or thin card; scissors, pencil, an uncluttered table (very important)

1)  Take an A4 sheet of black paper and draw an outline of a large simple shape (heart, fish, slug - or something else...).  Draw an identical shape, about 1cm smaller inside the original shape.  Cut around the inside and outside of the shape, leaving you with a thick shape outline...

2)  Peel the backing off the sticky-backed plastic (keep the backing paper), leaving the plastic sticky-side up on the table.  Place your shape outline in the centre of the plastic.  Cut an even number of 1cm wide strips to act as spokes, radiating out from the central shape and dividing the outer area into an even number of sections.

3)  Roughly cut/ tear the backing paper and replace it onto the plastic (shiny side down), leaving only the central shape exposed.  This is really important - it seems like a faff, but if you dont do it you are highly likely to get random bits of tissue/ other stuff stuck to the bit of plastic that you're not working on (and it's really annoying!)...

4)  Choose tissue paper in 3 complimentary shades of colour to fill your shape with (for our heart we used shades of yellow/orange).  Tear into small pieces (e irregularity of torn pieces is more effective than if cut with scissors) and place onto the exposed plastic inside our outline.  Fill the shape (leaving no sticky bits exposed)

5)  Remove backing paper, a bit at the time to complete the outer area.  Choose two sets of two complimentary shades which contrast with the colour in the shape - eg for our heart we chose two shades of green and two shades of pink/purple.  Complete an outer section at a time with small ripped pieces of tissue paper, alternating colours between each section..

6)  When the entire piece of plastic is covered with tissue paper, you may like to use scissors and trim the edges off the plastc as the tissue paper can look a bt tatty.  The finished product can be stuck to the window using blu-tack :)