Textured Alphabet Cards (with mini-tute!)

So, back in my primitive years of sewing when my daughter was just a wee baby, I decided to make her some fun textured ABC cards that she could safely chew and handle without destroying them. They turned out cute, but now I look at them and think of how much better I could make them. I envision using super tough Peltex as the actual card and doing some more embroidery and sewing on them.

Anyway, here's a little mini tutorial on how I did these:

Supplies:
foam-core board
non-toxic tacky glue or hot glue
fabric
felt
possibly a sewing machine, but you could easily get away with either hand sewing or gluing nearly everything.
non-toxic paint pens (love these!)

Any fun "texture-y" things:
buttons
embroidery floss
those plastic grid things for yarn (What are those called??)
yarn
craft foam
denim
ribbon

Cut your foam core board into 26 identical cards. Mine are about 5" x 7". Choose different fabrics for each card and cut the fabric to be about 2" bigger on each side. In most cases it is better to decorate the fabric before you glue it down to the foam-core board (ie sewing, embroidery, buttons, etc.) but I found that for writing on the fabric it was easier to do after I glue down the fabric and let it dry.

So, decorate your fabric pieces for each of the letters, glue them down to the foam-core board (with somewhat generous amounts, don't go overboard but you also don't want these to fall apart, right? Right.). Let dry (which usually take a few hours).

Once they are dry, finishing embellishing, if necessary/desired.

Glue the different cards together. I went in alphabetical order and used very generous amounts of tacky glue then pressed them under heavy books over night.

My one-year-old now is very much enjoying these cards and my 3-year-old loves practicing her ABC's with them. So I guess even my primitive skills were a winner with the babes.

So easy to please...