Doing an autograph album. Lots of time...

[juligrl]

DD and I are working on an autograph album for our next Disney trip (2009) so we have lots of time to "get it right" .
I like the idea of doing cards for the characters to sign, but what size is best to do them ? How small could I go and still be okay? If 3x5 index cards work, would 2 1/2 x 5 (tags left from a previous project) be pushing it. I know, I'm obsessed!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

you could use the 2.5 x 4 for the face characters like Cinderella, etc... but I did 3.5 x 5 for head characters. the only person that had trouble with that size was eeyore. He could not get the clipboard and the pen in the right position on his nose.

 

[Diana Lyn]

I had made tags that fit perfectly into an index card binder. They were almost the biggest tags the Cricut would cut, I want to say like 3x5. That worked really well because we just flipped to the next blank tag and had the character sign and they were stuck in the binder. No one had a problem signing it, and we got lots of compliments from the face characters too.

My goal was to make a page with a pocket for each character's tag. I can't for the life of me find the binder now though!

 

[missesdisney]

Just got back from a trip where we did pre made autograph cards. Here's what worked well for me (we were seriously chasing characters and got 65 in 4 and a half days!)

I made images on the computer with little borders and clipart of the character and the character name. I printed them on cardstock with the image size at 4 x 6. I inserted all the pictures into Word so I could manage them all together and print two on a page (I got this idea from someone on the boards so I'll look for the instructions if you need them). I bound them with a rollabind which I asked for my birthday in Feb for this exact reason. I love the rollabind because you can bind a lot of stuff easily then take it out later. I started with 80 pre-printed character pages and each night took out the signed ones and put them in a plastic box in the room. So it was easier to carry and find things.

I alphabatized the characters and some had 2 on a page so I made a cheat sheet for the front for myself to know who was where. When in a character line, I flipped through the pages to find and stuck a small post - it on the edge (sometimes, like Timon and Rafiki they are not next to each other in the stack so I tagged both). The actual writing area is considerably less than 4 x 6 and none of the characters had any problem with the big clickie sharpies I used (lot of colors). Tags would be small and hard to work with - when the book was full of the 80 pages, it didn't flip over well and I ended up holding my hand under to steady it sometimes.

What I am going to do it cut the edging off each page to get it to the original 4x6 image with autograph and then my son and I will scrap his own 8 x 11 book with that and the picture taken of him with the character. I also did one page for each country in world showcase and had the cast member write 'welcome to....happy to meet you' in their language. He loved that. Also make sure if you customize the pages you have lots of blanks. We saw Darth Vader and my husband yelled at me (lovingly...) that I didn't have a page for him! Who woulda thunk I'd see Vader I say???

Good luck and keep us posted with your progress!

 

[juligrl]

Thanks for the suggestions. You are always so helpful!
I'll post as we finish pages.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

Julie, what kind of dog is that, a papillion??

 

[new_mommy]

I used the Creative Tags brand of Paper Reflections, medium sized. They measure 5 1/4" x 2 5/8". Goofy and Eeyore had a little trouble with them, but did fine. I carried a stack in a baggie with a decoupaged clipboard. We pulled out a tag, attached to the clipboard and let my dd pick the color of click sharpie they were to sign in. I would have preferred the large sized tags, but didn't have enough time to get them before we left. I liked these tags because I can use ribbon or other embellishments to attach to the page and they have the reinforced hole at the top. At night, we took all of the autographed ones out and left them in a box in the hotel room.

Now I've just got to make the book!

 

[juligrl]

Julie, what kind of dog is that, a papillion??

She's a purebred Jack Russell Terrier - her mom was a smoothe coat Wishbone lookalike and her dad was a shaggier version of Eddie from Frasier. She's a broken coat Jack, but her hair is so silky and long especially on her ears, that I get asked that question a lot!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

She's a purebred Jack Russell Terrier - her mom was a smoothe coat Wishbone lookalike and her dad was a shaggier version of Eddie from Frasier. She's a broken coat Jack, but her hair is so silky and long especially on her ears, that I get asked that question a lot!

Our friend has a papillion and Yoda looks just like you dog but his colors are different. That's why I wasn't sure. If I had a decent yard I would get a Wishbone in a heartbeat. I love Jacks. We have a big field but it's close to the road. I wouldn't even let my golden out alone, even though he didn't wander.