any ideas for autograph books or where to buy them ahead of time

[jeanneg4of4]

I am planning to make my 4 children a "bag" of disney stuff to take down with us to wdw. I need some good ideas for things. we will be driving a total of 16 hours and I have 4 kids dd 14, ds12, ds6, ds3. I have gotten disney books and sticker sets coloring books. But what I really want to know is if there is anywhere I can buy autigraph books or the book for epcot with the diiferent nations. or does anyone have any good ideas on home made books.I tend not to be very creative but would like something special for the kids (first time )

[WildGrits]

What a great idea!:) I'm sure they will be thrilled to get a little care package for vacation. I think that you can find autograph books at most craft stores. Like A.C. Moore. Remember to buy the big pencils because it is hard for the characters to hold a little one with those big hands of theirs. Have a great time.:Pinkbounc

[twinz]

We are going with friends in September, and we bought the kids "autograph" books. They are not really autograph books, just books, with plain paper (no lines) . We got them at a card store (Hallmark). We are going to get the kids to decorate the front of their books, closer to our trip. They are also the ones with the REALLY bright paper (Gel paper), and we bought a fat sharpie. I hope they like them. Plus they are not binded but have spirals, which should make it easier for the characters to hold/sign.

[robinb]

Here's a description on how to create a homemade autograph book:

http://www.disneydollarless.com/articles/Tracy012602.shtml

They are only $6 once you get to WDW.

[MNT568]

I ordered the Disney autograph book from giftsofalifetime.com before our trip. I also got a couple of the "fat Pens" as well, these were great for the characters to sign with. I also believe they have the Epcot passports. I was very happy with Gifts of a Lifetime, give them a try.

[bobcat]

I make goodie bags for each of our trips. I buy disney character party supplies on clearance, gift bags and party treats, usually never spending more than $1 for a package and sometimes only 25cents. I buy all year long and usually end up with more than I use. LOL I have also had good luck buying beenies on sale as well and adding these. I usually make one up for the car trip and one for each day. I add sunglasses, neck cords, hats, chapstick, snacks, drawing paper, new markers, little toys, bubbles, stickers, activity books, cards games, travel games, window clings for the van windows, books, etc.

This is a car activity book you can print out
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/books/cartravelbook/

I also make themed puzzles and they have great mazes
http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/

This is a site that was posted earlier this week that look promising
http://www.momsminivan.com/

[WildGrits]

Thanx Bobcat!!!!! That was a ton of information you laid down. I have been looking for stuff to give my younguns to do during the 9 hours car ride to Mickey's house. I'm sure you have just shortened my search;)

[wahoo776]

Hi!

I noticed the link on this board about making the autograph books for the characters. And that they are only $6 in the parks. Well, I have to say our recent trip to WDW was exceptional due to the fact that a good friend of mine made my children autograph books. These books were personalized for each child, and had a page for every character we could think of. The expression and gestures of the characters when they had a page was undescribable. Not once did my children get a 'standard' autograph. We often got hand drawn pictures and had to chase down the Queen of Hearts at MGM when she saw the books, because she had to show everyone that she had a page in our books. She then in true character made Alice return the books to us. And had all of us get in a picture with her and Alice and the books. It was priceless! My children noticed the special attention that was given to them to, Characters often danced, showed other guest and even other characters when they had a page. We even had characters who would initially refused to sign when they didn't have a page. (My son started a list and assured them they would have a page next time. I have a picture of him reassuring with his little arm around a character who was crying!) I'm sorry I could go on and on about this, to be honest is was one of the few things in our 7 day vacation that did go right.
:( BUT this went GREAT:sunny: SO to make a long story short (LOL) I can not suggest enough that you and/or your children take the time to make these books. If you would like suggestions as to how the inside pages were done, Feel free to email me.
Thank you,
Amy

[Lainy67]

WAHOO 776 -

Do you have a list of the characters in the books (and the list of the forgotten ones)? I am not good with characters, but I think that is a wonderful idea.

I want to do it, since I am into scrapbooking, and would like to do a real scrapbook with my eldest daughter.

[rjordan]

We bought an autograph book at the Disney store before we left home. It was on sale for under $3!!! (Plus my Disney Club discount...) I have also seen really cute autograph books at Wal-Mart for about the same price. Have fun with whatever route you choose.

[bobcat]

WildGrits glad to help. Most of that info I got here. ;) I look forward to making the goodie bags each trip. They also really cut down on our souvineer spending because the kids have a lot of new stuff left for them each day.

wahoo776 did you use clip art for your autograph books? How did you bind them. If its not to much trouble could you give us a few more details? This sounds like fun.

[wahoo776]

Good Evening to everyone!
I have received several emails in regard to the autograph books so I decided to post here rather than send emails. But first, I must not take any credit for these, they were made by a good friend. I will do my best to get this as acurate as I can.
They are made out of 5x7 3 ring binders. She got white ones with clear covers so that you can put any picture in it you would like. She put a picture of the child and their favorite character on the front of each book. (This made it very easy to pull and hand to a child out of the back of a stroller!)
The inside of each book she used a thick paper which it looks like she pulled apart(?) Most pages have only one character on them, but some have 2. They are divided into sections with file folder tabs so that the children could easily find what character they were looking for. To decorate the pages she used a combination of Disney Print artist, stickers and books that she picked up at several different discount stores and at the Disney store. (She can spot a bargain a mile away, I swear!) She then decorated the pages even more with squiglies lines to like frame them. They are absolutely wonderful!

Here is a list of tabs and then the character in each:
(I will put a star by the autographs that we got.)
1.Mickey and Friend
Mickey Mouse * (Of course!)
Minnie Mouse *
Daisy Duck * (She went nuts over hers and she was hard to find)
Donald Duck *
Goofy*
Pluto *
Chip and Dale *
2.Pooh and Friends
Christopher Robin
Pooh
Tigger
Eeyore*
Piglet
Kanga
3.Toy Story
Jessie
Piggy Bank
Woody*
Buzz Lightyear*(They don't actually sign, they use a stamp,
could write a whole page on what a bad day this was!!!)
4.Princess
(Essential if you will be going to Cinderalla Breakfast!)
Cinderella*
Fairy Godmother*
Prince
Mice
Snow White*
Dwarf
Wicked Witch
Ariel
Princess Jasmine*
Alladin*
Jafar
Genie
Mulan*
Ping*
Pocahontas
John Smith
Belle*
Sleeping Beauty
Esmeralda*
Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hercules woman(?)*
Hercules
5.Alice in Wonderland
Alice*
White Rabbit*
Tweedledee and Tweedledum*
Mad Hatter*
Queen Of Hearts*
6.Robin Hood
Sherrif of Nottingham
Robin Hood
Princess Mariam
Prince John*
7.MISC
Brer Rabbit
Brer Fox
Sulley
Mike
Monsters
Flik
Princess from Bugs life
Tarzan
Kala
Rafiki*(This is a great character!!!)
Timon*
Pumba
Peter Pan
Tinker Bell
Captain Hook*
Pinocchio*
Jiminy Cricket*
Cruella DeVille
Puppy
Luke Skywalker
R2D2
Blank Pages for forgotten characters.
Mary Poppins* (We saw her at the Cinderellas Breakfast!)
Baloo*
Farfellow(Pinocchio)*
Green Army Men*

I took lots of pictures and I am planning on using them in combination with the removable autographs to put together a scrapbook of the trip for each child.

I hope this helps! These probably cost between $10/15 per book to make and she made 7 at once for everyone who was going! I know the cost is more than the ones in the parks, but it was so worth it.

Good Luck,

[jldriscoll]

I've spent the last half hour adding all your wonderful ideas to my planning notebook!!!

My kids are going to have the best trip thanks to the generousity of people here. Thanks for sharing your ideas!!!!

:bounce: :Pinkbounc :bounce: :Pinkbounc :bounce: :Pinkbounc :bounce: :Pinkbounc

[jeanneg4of4]

thank you all for the wounderful ideas. I have plenty to go on and I know the kids will love a personalized autograph book.I am getting sooo excited. thanks

[bobcat]

Thank you wahoo776! I am going to make these for our next trip. The kids have filled up their autograph books on the last few trips and we were wondering if we should by another. I like that I can use these to scrapbook.

That took a lot of time to post so thank you for making the effort!

[sjh801]

Thanks, WAHOO 776!!! What a great post. I've been looking for something different for autographs and am going to use your idea.

Thanks for the ideas!

Sjh801
:earsgirl:

[trayletha]

Thank You Wahoo 776. I was just going to buy the disney albums but yours sound sooo great I can't wait to start on one for our DD's First Trip.

PS. Woody and Buzz were a bust?? Could you post more on that, they are DD's favorites (even more than the princesses). Also does anybody know if there is a Jessie??

[llane]

trayletha ... there was a jessie in 2000. See was adorable.

[lisaost]

At this website there's a downloadable MS EXCEL spreadsheet called the Character Location Matrix which would probably help you with identifying all the characters. VERY COOL SITE!

[trayletha]

I found this site too

http://www.toonfinder.com/wdwpalm.htm

pretty good and you can down load it into a palm - I'm going to try tonight.

[wahoo776]

Hi all!
I just wanted to give you all an over view of what Pizza Planet/Buzz and Woody was like.
I would like to remind everyone this is just my humble opinion.
The only place you can see Buzz and Woody are at MGM Studios, They have a front up, which looks like Al's Toy Barn but it is just a front. That is were you meet Buzz and Woody who will then Stamp your book. Pizza Planet was closed when we were there and didn't appear to be going to reopen anytime soon. This is totally out of the way and you had to really search for this area if you had never been to MGM.
I would love to tell everyone the rest of the details of this but I'm waiting to hear from Disney in reply to my letter and would like to give them a chance to respond before I start getting ugly about this.
Oh, I almost forgot we didn't see Jessie anyplace!
Thanks and Good Luck,

[Disneylovers]

We also were a bust to see the Toy Story gang, when we visited 6/9. Jessie was there, under the trees, next to Al's Toy Barn. Jessie was DD's favorite Disney character, notice the past tense. We trudged across the park to see her, got in line, and they informed us the line was closed, Jessie would be back in about 40 minutes. Since the line for Woody and Buzz was long, we headed into that line. The characters would go back to "cool off" every 15 minutes (who could blame them, it was about 90!), and DD patiently waited. When she was next in line, it started to rain, and the characters went inside. We waited, and waited, a cast member even came out to tell us where to wait so as not to get so wet. After about 25 minutes, we left. Of course, the rain stopped, and when we made our way back there the line was very long again. The same cast member was there, I tried to see if she remembered us to let DD in, but she didn't. DD was very disappointed (to the point she refused to sleep with her Jessie doll the rest of the trip). But Snow White made up for it, and is now the new favorite!

[Diznyqt]

I must credit my super intelligent 5 year old DD for this idea.

When we moved up here last week, I took the kids to a local $1.99 store. DD bought (among other things), a thick, spiral bound mini-notebook. It has Mickey on the cover & a LOT of multi-colored pages inside of it. She told me "I have plans for this". She wasn't kidding! That night, she went through her Disney stickers & some cutout pictures she had of the characters. She put one character's picture on each page (I think she has just about everyone in there now). Now, she has a place for each one to sign in that book. The only downfall is all the pages to go through for that, but you certainly have the time to prepare while waiting in the lines for the autographs. Not to mention, you wouldn't HAVE to designate pages as she did. The book alone is really quite ideal for it all on its own.

[Terrise]

Hello Wahoo776 (Amy)
Thanks for the incredible autograph book idea. I just made one for myself! After all, going to Disney World was my idea and I'm paying the bills! I found lots of good websites with great clipart. In the back of the book I also added a page with a flag for each country in the World Showcase.
Now I'm going to show it to my grandkids, and make all 6 of them each one. Only 4 months to go now before our Mad Matriarch's Disney tea party.
Terrise

[jldriscoll]

OK... all ready to make books for my girls and in my piles of scrapbook stuff I found 2 spiral scrapbooks UNUSED!!

They would be perfect for this only I'm a little concerned about the size.

They are 4 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches plus extra for the spiral.

Will the characters be able to hold them that size? Or do they need to be bigger?

[trayletha]

I found lots of good websites with great clipart.


Terrise - Where? Could you post some of the sites - particularly where I can find the villians? My 3yo DD loves the villians.

Do you think I need to worry about that? ;) ;)


Thanks

[wahoo776]

Terrise

You go, you Disney Matriarch you!!!:Pinkbounc

We never thought to add the Epcot Worlds, we will be doing that for next year!!!

Thank you!

Jrdriscoll

I think the books will be fine! The autographs books at the park are smaller or the same size as that, I think!

Good Luck!

[hmerritt]

Someone pleeeeassssee tell me where to find Stickers! lol~ I have been all over this town trying to find stickers other than Mickey & Gang and Pooh.

Help!

Heather

[Terrise]

Hello again.
Here are 3 sites that I loved for clipart:

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Bungalow/8227/index.html

http://www.wtv-zone.com/KeLisa/gifs2/toon/disney

http://www.tripletsrus.com/disney/art.htm

I hope this helps. We aren't nuts about the villians, but I'd try typing in "disney villians clipart" on any search engine if I wanted them.
My grandkids are getting so excited, but not as much as me!
Terrise

[wahoo776]

Heather,

I was at our local Dollar Tree about 3 days ago and the had a bunch of Disney Stickers. You may want to try you there, if you have on in the area. We found another great place was McFrugal's or Big Lots.

Good Luck,

Amy

[Barb D]

My kids have several trips' worth of autograph books, and on our last trip we did not plan on standing in a lot of character lines...but they still wanted to get a few special autographs. We bought a plain bright pink hip pack for 8yo DD, and a plain bright hunter orange baseball hat for 10yo DS, and had the characters autograph those instead of books. I made a little blankie for my toddler, with a Minnie Mouse print on one side and a piece of flannel on the other. The characters autographed the Minnie side. (I even sewed a handle on the blankie so that we could attach it to her stroller so it wouldn't get lost.) She sleeps with it even now.

Even if you do use autograph books, you might want to bring along something else to have autographed as well. They still use and enjoy these things well beyond the trip, but their autograph books pretty much just stay on the shelf.

[cfbarker]

I got the idea for making an autograph book for DS somewhere on this forum and while it took quite a bit of time -- it was well worth it! The characters just LOVE to see their pictures. I took
4 x 6 index cards and printed a character on each card. I found several great clipart sites. I also bought a small 3-ring photo album with Pooh and friends from Wal-mart. I took the plastic protector pages out, punched holes in the index cards, and put them in the binder with tabs to separate groups of characters. The only trouble I had was having too many character cards to fit in the binder - had to leave out a few! Here are some of the Clipart sites I found that were helpful:

http://www.disneyclipart.com/

http://wondersofdisney.disneyfansites.com/clipart.html

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Resort/4382/clipart.html

http://www.geocities.com/tonsofdisneyclipart/index.html

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Lane/6362/disney1.html

Anyway, I hope these sites help!

Christine

[Teri Zolman]

jeanneg4of4
hi just to add to wahoo776's replies. I am the friend that made the autograph books with lots of help from my kids. I used a spiral binder that was $2.35 from Wal-Mart, the paper was what I had at home almost the weight of card stock. I found alot of stickers at party stores and Toys R Us. Don't forget to include Lilo and Stitch they are at MGM and what great characters. We just returned a week ago from our latest trip. :Pinkbounc

Teri

Dec 2004 Disney Cruise (Vow renewal)
June 2002 Ft. Wilderness and All-Star Sports
March 2002 All-Star Movies
Dec 2001 All-Star Music
May 2001 All-Star Movies (Girl Scouts)

[bobcat]

I made two autograph books! I found small spiral notebooks for 99 cents at Odd Lots, they had great colors and one is even lime green. We used stickers, clip art, and scrapbook paper for each page. I had all of this on hand so it didn't cost any extra. I used my xyron machine to add a sticky back to the cutouts. They look great and we are still adding to it. I also printed out the flags for each world showcase country.

[travelitis]

I made books for my kids last trip that served as autograph/memory/travel journal/activity books. For every country there was an educational question to which they had to find the answer and a place for the passport stamp. I used www.disneyclipart.com and printed everything on cardstock. I found a plastic binder of pockets that allowed me to design my own cover and slide it in. The pages I made also were covered with plastic. We had characters sign by their pictures, and after we got our photos back I added them to the books. It had a travel journal section as well as activity pages. Throughout the book were things like, "If I had a magic carpet I would go to", or "My favorite ride was". There was a page devoted to their favorites and pages for character meals. Each park had its own section, and I had specific pictures in mind like the kids pulling the Sword in the Stone. I'd already used that logo above where the picture would go. There were pages for travel days, NASA, and the resort. To summarize, it was very detailed and very time consuming. However, it is the best souvenir my kids have, and they love the books. Also, they got lots of extra attention from the characters, especially Mickey whose helper kept reminding him that there was a line growing. He just kept waving her off until he got to see every page.

I'm doing these again, but I'm going to take it to an office store to be bound in a plastic cover which will cost about $2.50 each. The front is clear, so my cover design won't be covered. However, we will have to keep them in ziplocks to protect from rain. I'm trying this method because we had to pull the pages out of the pockets for characters to sign, and we had to secure the tops with paperclips to ensure they didn't slip out if we picked it up wrong. I'm also doing a table of contents and using tabs to help us find specific characters quickly.

[duck_adoo]

Did anyone have a problem printing on the card stock paper? I don't have the best printer in the world (no pun intended lol!),but it sounds like a great idea.
Thanks,
Duck

[bobcat]

I use card stock all the time for different projects and I have never had a problem.