Seb's Birthday Card

This week was my nephew's first birthday. I made him a card. I wanted it to be something he could appreciate, being twelve months old, so I decided to make it collage style, with loads of different textures.

I cut out some shapes and made a basic train picture with them. The engine is felt, the cab is foam and the chimney is corrugated paper. I glued it all down onto a piece of corrugated cardboard. I didn't glue the leftmost part of the cab just yet. I had plans for that later.

Once dried, I cut the card out and turned it over. I mirrored the image on the front using coloured paper, and glued it down.

Then I cut out some wheel shapes from a textured, glittery card and stuck them on. It had to sit under a book for a little while because the wheels wanted to curl up. I did the same on the front, but for some reason I don't have a picture of that.

Next I cut a piece of purple card for the back. I made a crease and cut a tab into the edge of it, like so:

Then I smothered it in glue and slotted it into the back of the train (where I hadn't glued the foam sheet down)

For the background, I first glued a blue cellophane sheet to a piece of white card.

Then I found some green fabric. I cut strips of it and made rough little snips along the edge of each one. Then I went down said edge, pulling the fibers apart a little, to make it fray.I did take pictures of this step, but they're rubbish so you'll just have to imagine what I mean.
I glued all the green strips down, layering them over each other, like so:

Now to make the track. I cut strips of kitchen foil and glued them onto the 'grass' to make the runners.

I cut two long thin strips off my cardboard box, and glued a piece of fabric around each one. I stuck them down to make the edges of the track.

I glued the whole scene onto a piece of corrugated card; the aforementioned purple card was stuck to the back of this.

After everything had dried, I trimmed it to size.

Then James added some finishing touches for me. He glued on some white fluffy stuff (I think it's a cushion filler or something) and added a bar onto the train's wheels.

Finished! When I gave this card to Seb, he proceeded to hold the thing by the 'grass' and shake it. But it didn't make any noise, so he tired of that pretty quickly.