I’m sure there are a million versions of these online, but this is what my daughter and I whipped up 2 days before we left for Disney World this summer.
How to Make a DIY Disney Autograph Book
Supplies:
- photo albums from Dollar Tree
- 4 x 6 card stock (so you don’t have to worry about cutting it!)
- decorative tape (I used Dollar Tree washi tape, but duck tape would last much longer)
- scrapbook paper (there are lots of Disney prints at AC Moore)
- scissors or paper cutter
- Sharpies
I actually made the two smaller ones while drinking wine at my friend Cindy’s house. My friends already think I’m weird, so they didn’t bat an eyelash when I showed up with my paper cutter. 🙂 We went to Disney World 2 years ago and I bought Lulu an autograph book there, one of the one ones where you can inserts photographs, but it fell apart before our vacation was over. We had to duck tape the spine to hold it together. Boo.
It’s pretty self-explanatory — I removed the ugly inserts that came with the books and added scrapbook paper instead. Then I trimmed the edges in washi tape. (It’s already starting to peel up a little, so I’ll probably replace it with duck tape.)At Disney, the kids were able to give each character a piece of the scrapbook paper to sign. It was super easy for them to lean the paper on the book and sign.
I had 3 kids asking for signatures, so the easiest thing to do was give the character 3 pieces of paper, 1 Sharpie, and one photo album to lean on. No need to hand over 3 of each. Sometimes the character wouldn’t even lean on anything.
After the paper was signed, I would slip one into each book for safe keeping. The order didn’t make any difference because I was able to switch the papers around at will. When we got home, I printed the character pictures and rearranged the albums.
I liked the flexibility and I loved the additional room. The Dollar Tree photo albums hold 48 pictures, so that’s a maximum of 24 signatures/photos. The autograph book I bought in Disney World only had room for 15 signatures/photos, so this was a big improvement. Nobody wants to have to pick and choose which characters to add to their book. I put the characters that don’t give an autograph in the back of the book, along with extra family pictures. (We saw Mickey in 3 different outfits, so we didn’t have him sign every time.)
As you can see, the characters had no problems signing the books. I highly recommend bringing a few Sharpies!
(Read THIS POST to see how I made the Jake and the Never Land Pirates vest last Halloween!)
While we were on line for Buzz and Woody, we met these two cuties who made carrying bags for their autograph books “to keep them safe.” I recognized the bag as a pencil case right away because Smart Jr used to have one just like it back in the day. Their mom said she found the idea on Pinterest. Love it!
Be sure to check out more posts about our family life below!
Wonderful ideas….we leave in 3 days for Disney and I think I have time to make 2 of these for the grands.
Awesome! Glad you found me!!
So happy I found this! Best idea I’ve seen yet without having to use a bunch of my printer ink for characters my son might not even see. My son is iffy about meeting characters at times so this is perfect and I don’t have to spend a lot of money. Thank you for such a great idea!
What an incredible idea!! We’re going on our first Disney trip, and I’m so excited! This will be an amazing addition to the surprise for our 3 kiddos. Thanks so much for sharing this super cute, cost-effective autograph book idea