Homemade Sentence Maker

Since we have had 'keep inside' weather this weekend, I took the opportunity to make a little gem from my childhood, a Sentence Maker!!

Our kinder boy is learning his sight words but it was time to make sentences so I made this!

If you want to make one, here's how I did mine.

You need A4 charts of your words. I used open office, I used a table of 3 columns and 6 rows. Printed and laminated them and cut them out. Here's them on the computer:

Then I had two Manilla Files, they make the inner and outer sections of the folder. I chose to make mine landscape, not portrait.

Open one manilla file the way you want it. Landscape I was able to fit 4 rows to store the words and I chose 3 larger spaces for the sentences. Since the words I printed are quite large I'm going to add wings for extra storage space...

In pencil, rule out your 4 storage lines evenly on the inside on the top section. Leave a 1 cm margin to the outer left and right edges. Start from the centre crease and give yourself at least 2 cm on space from centre fold to the first line, you are going to need the space later. Rule up the lines you want in the bottom section for the sentence lines.

With a knife cut these lines, both top and bottom section.

After you have finished cutting all the lines. Turn file over so you are looking at the outside and 1 cm below each cut line add double sided tape BENEATH this line. This gives you the pocket space for the words to be stored in. The photo below is of my winged section and the double sided tape appears to be on the wrong side of the bottom section. It is as I will be cutting this in half and turning over for a left and right wing.

Have the second manilla file open in the same direction that you are making this in, again for me landscape, expose the other side of the tape and carefully lay the sticky side into the open folder, top section first.

Smooth out top section and fold in half to smooth bottom section. This is because the two pieces need to fold.

That's it! One sentence maker! Add wings if you have lots of words if you like.

Kinder boy made his sentence!

Closing it up...

The village.....

Blacksmith!

Here's our ds showing off his craft at the local markets. He created quite a stir, lots of lookers, pics taken and even sold some things. The most common comment was from older folk, "How good to see young guys doing something with their hands"

Next week he's thinking of adding a sign "Take only photos, leave only money"! How entrepreneurial ! LOL

South coast ss girls.

We finally managed a far south coast get together! We had a lovely morning and Pooh behaved remarkably well considering he was the only male in the chook house ;o)

Lindy, Piglet and Neenapeena, Pooh took the pic.

I've been crafty

Covered folders in an effort to help my organisational skills! A pocket on the inside and ribbons as place markers.

The last pic is scrapbooking paper laminated with paper tags for the dividers.

A new garden bed being birthed

We need a garden bed closer to the house, a salad garden so here it is at the very beginning. We leveled the bed, built the back up with rocks. Eventually we plan to cover the bed with bird netting from the side of the garage on the right of the photo.

Well the birthing process is slow on this one, but here's an update in October... need to get cracking I want summer salads from this garden! However, things have been welded and pipe laid, the rocks, just waiting for the soil and lots of poo! I would like a gravel walk way too and it all needs to be netted.

The only colour in my garden.

I love autumn colour but we don't have any large deciduous trees so my roses, the ones that survived wallaby grazing, have to do.

Craft room door striker plate.

Now I realise that a striker plate is hardly something to blog about, however this one was a challenge and Pooh rose to the challenge!

Our 100 yr old door that has been on various buildings and has the holes to prove it, has been placed on my craft room. It's old lovely brass handle that's pictured on the left is finally on, of course as it would be hard to photograph not on! Then the next problem was shutting it as there are no striker plates to fit our quirky building so Pooh made one out of a stainless steel sink! And to top if off it works!!!!

Hooray Pooh! Now holes to fill and key hole surround to go on... off you go Pooh.

Leftover egg whites

After making the gramma pie, post below, I had two little egg whites so I made meringue.

2 egg whites, 1/2 cup caster sugar, 1 tsp corn flour and 1/2 tsp vinegar. 150 for 30 mins, cool in over. Mine was a bit hot after the gramma pie was cooked so some split. They taste divine, the dentist will love me :-o

Gramma Pie

I was given a nearly 8kg Gramma so I've started the processing of this treasure. Here it is with the first portion removed...

I cooked and mashed the gramma. You cook it in a very small amount of water and when cooked, drain and mash. Here's what that looks like...

Add sultanas, mixed spice, nutmeg, 2 egg yolks, lemon zest and juice, mix.

Make up a shortcrust pastry sprinkle a bit of nutmeg, some raw sugar on top then in the over for 10 mins at 200 then 45 mins at 180.

Pies from left overs

We had left overs from a steak and mushroom casserole. Since the oyster blade was so amazing the gravy was the main leftover with only a few pieces of meat. I browned some mince and mixed it up. Rolled out the pastry and voila! 10 pies :o)