DisneyMom23Boys
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2004
- Messages
- 146
Hi!
In 1997, during our first WDW trip, I had the characters sign every other page in the regular 4 x 6" Disney Autograph Books that are sold at the parks and then I pasted the picture of my sons with that character on the opposite page. We filled about 3/4 of the book and it was really neat when finished. Unfortunately, I found that the binding wasn't made for this purpose and it fell apart!
We went back in 2000 and 2002 using the same standard Disney Autograph books, but didn't attempt adding pictures.
In preparation of our May, 2003 trip I knew I had to do something different. We had this broken autograph/picture book & several autograph books.
I had thought about using the 7" x 7" CM books, but with all of the pictures of my sons with the characters over the years the decision would have to be made as to which ONE picture to choose?? I discussed it with dh and decided to go with the 8-1/2" x 11" CM album. I could insert pages and fill with more, as needed.
I decided to begin with Mickey (of course!
and the other Disney classic characters and then sorted my photos according to movie title so that Aladdin & Jasmine, Snow White & Dopey, etc. could all be together! Putting them in alphabetical order by movie title made it a lot easier to find who we needed quickly. I went through ALL of my pictures of our family with the characters and chose 1 of each character from every trip. I inserted several BLACK CM pages at Star Wars in preparation for the Star Wars characters we anticipated meeting during the first 2 Star Wars Weekends in May, 2003.
Well, it's been 3 trips since putting our book (now books!) together & we don't regret doing it for a second!!
I take apart the album, print out a cover picture of our family with all of our resort dates, etc. (in case our book is misplaced!). I then place it on the front cover and get out zip-loc baggies to cover the front & back. I pull out the removable binding & make my own out of construction paper covered by clear packing tape. This protects our album during meals, rain, etc.
On our first two trips with it I even used portrait pages for the back in which I printed our daily itinerary (one for each day). That's where I would put all of our receipts, Magical Moments Certificates, etc., so that they don't get lost, mangled, etc.
This past May it was about 5" thick. This time I even took my CM pens, placed them in their own zip-loc baggie & taped it directly to the album! (In the past I had them in my fanny pack, which was cumbersome). This is also where I keep my list of all the characters that we still need autographs for or still need to meet!
Last week I finally got our character pictures developed from our May, 2005 trip. There were 14 of us on this adventure, allowing for lots of photo opportunities.
Now we officially have TWO autograph books to carry along on our next trip! We are leaving this Thursday & will arrive at ASMo on Saturday, 8/20!!
In the front of our album I've put a family picture from every year, including resort details. I have a picture of my brother & I at the breezeway between Adventureland & Liberty Square from 1972-1973??
We were told that Mickey & Minnie have hundreds of different outfits that they appear in!! Sooooo, dh (yes, dh!) decided that we should include ALL pictures of the characters in different autographs! We have the following 16 different pictures of Mickey: Animal Kingdom (safari-2003), Mission Space (2005), Sorceror (MGM-Mickey Ave-2004), Classic/Yellow Bow Tie (1992), Classic/Red Bow Tie (Main St. Parade - not with family-1972/73), Farmer (Garden Grill-2000), Caribbean (Castaway Cay-2005), Dinosaur (Donald's Breakfastosaurus-2002), Captain (DCL-2005), Tailor (Fantasmic - not with family), Chef (Chef Mickey's-2004), Captain (Fulton's Crab House-1997), Polynesian (O'Hanas-2003), Black Tux/Top Hat (special picture received from CM in 2004), DSU (Disney Sea University-DCL - not with family-2005), and Davy Crockett (Halloween costume at Camp Minnie-Mickey -2004 was told by a CM that every 1/2 hour when he & Minnie would go in for a break, they would come out in a different costume!!! - I wanted to spend our last day getting pics, but dh frowned at that idea. I wonder if dh would want to now, since this whole character outfit search was his idea?? LOL) I think there were a couple different outfits of Mickey that we missed on DCL (pirate & formal), but we're planning on another cruise in a few years.
You may wonder why we bother to take the album(s) and don't just get the characters to sign 4" x 6" pieces of paper? We absolutely LOVE sharing our album(s) with CM's!!! They adore looking at the pictures from over the past and this year I'm planning on borrowing my sister's Kodak print doc so that I could include family photos with the characters each day!!! Next week will be my family (self, dh & 3 sons-12, 10 & 6) with my parents and 90 year old grandmother (and her first trip to WDW!!!) My children enjoy sharing it with everyone and we have even left it at Guest Relations at different parks during the day (at the end of our trip when we knew we weren't going to meet anyone new).
We have needed a double stroller up to our trip in October, 2004, so that was a great safe place to keep the album (inside a backpack). This past May we purchased a rolling backpack, which worked out great for the autograph book. This year my grandmother will be in a wheelchair, so the backpack will fit nicely on the back of that.
Our oldest son is getting tired of the character hunts (he just turned 12), because he's more interested in rides, rides, rides right now. Our 10 yo will always be my Character Hunt Buddy, though. The boys have also found that there have been special perks with sharing our special treasure, too, though!!
We have met 108 Disney characters, 26 Star Wars characters & have yet to meet about 64 different Disney characters (that includes ALL characters - including those who appear in parades, but may not be available for Meet & Greets - but there's always hope!!
When we were there in May I was talking with an Entertainment CM who asked me if I had been to MK the day before during the Regis & Kelly taping, because there were 70 different characters out, including DUMBO!!!
Sorry this was so long, but I hope that I gave lots of autograph book ideas!
Deb (Off to do some more packing so that I can relax tomorrow, before leaving on Thursday! - NOT!! LOL)
In 1997, during our first WDW trip, I had the characters sign every other page in the regular 4 x 6" Disney Autograph Books that are sold at the parks and then I pasted the picture of my sons with that character on the opposite page. We filled about 3/4 of the book and it was really neat when finished. Unfortunately, I found that the binding wasn't made for this purpose and it fell apart!
We went back in 2000 and 2002 using the same standard Disney Autograph books, but didn't attempt adding pictures.
In preparation of our May, 2003 trip I knew I had to do something different. We had this broken autograph/picture book & several autograph books.
I had thought about using the 7" x 7" CM books, but with all of the pictures of my sons with the characters over the years the decision would have to be made as to which ONE picture to choose?? I discussed it with dh and decided to go with the 8-1/2" x 11" CM album. I could insert pages and fill with more, as needed.
I decided to begin with Mickey (of course!
and the other Disney classic characters and then sorted my photos according to movie title so that Aladdin & Jasmine, Snow White & Dopey, etc. could all be together! Putting them in alphabetical order by movie title made it a lot easier to find who we needed quickly. I went through ALL of my pictures of our family with the characters and chose 1 of each character from every trip. I inserted several BLACK CM pages at Star Wars in preparation for the Star Wars characters we anticipated meeting during the first 2 Star Wars Weekends in May, 2003.Well, it's been 3 trips since putting our book (now books!) together & we don't regret doing it for a second!!
I take apart the album, print out a cover picture of our family with all of our resort dates, etc. (in case our book is misplaced!). I then place it on the front cover and get out zip-loc baggies to cover the front & back. I pull out the removable binding & make my own out of construction paper covered by clear packing tape. This protects our album during meals, rain, etc.
On our first two trips with it I even used portrait pages for the back in which I printed our daily itinerary (one for each day). That's where I would put all of our receipts, Magical Moments Certificates, etc., so that they don't get lost, mangled, etc.
This past May it was about 5" thick. This time I even took my CM pens, placed them in their own zip-loc baggie & taped it directly to the album! (In the past I had them in my fanny pack, which was cumbersome). This is also where I keep my list of all the characters that we still need autographs for or still need to meet!
Last week I finally got our character pictures developed from our May, 2005 trip. There were 14 of us on this adventure, allowing for lots of photo opportunities.
Now we officially have TWO autograph books to carry along on our next trip! We are leaving this Thursday & will arrive at ASMo on Saturday, 8/20!!
In the front of our album I've put a family picture from every year, including resort details. I have a picture of my brother & I at the breezeway between Adventureland & Liberty Square from 1972-1973??
We were told that Mickey & Minnie have hundreds of different outfits that they appear in!! Sooooo, dh (yes, dh!) decided that we should include ALL pictures of the characters in different autographs!
We have the following 16 different pictures of Mickey: Animal Kingdom (safari-2003), Mission Space (2005), Sorceror (MGM-Mickey Ave-2004), Classic/Yellow Bow Tie (1992), Classic/Red Bow Tie (Main St. Parade - not with family-1972/73), Farmer (Garden Grill-2000), Caribbean (Castaway Cay-2005), Dinosaur (Donald's Breakfastosaurus-2002), Captain (DCL-2005), Tailor (Fantasmic - not with family), Chef (Chef Mickey's-2004), Captain (Fulton's Crab House-1997), Polynesian (O'Hanas-2003), Black Tux/Top Hat (special picture received from CM in 2004), DSU (Disney Sea University-DCL - not with family-2005), and Davy Crockett (Halloween costume at Camp Minnie-Mickey -2004 was told by a CM that every 1/2 hour when he & Minnie would go in for a break, they would come out in a different costume!!! - I wanted to spend our last day getting pics, but dh frowned at that idea. I wonder if dh would want to now, since this whole character outfit search was his idea?? LOL) I think there were a couple different outfits of Mickey that we missed on DCL (pirate & formal), but we're planning on another cruise in a few years.You may wonder why we bother to take the album(s) and don't just get the characters to sign 4" x 6" pieces of paper? We absolutely LOVE sharing our album(s) with CM's!!! They adore looking at the pictures from over the past and this year I'm planning on borrowing my sister's Kodak print doc so that I could include family photos with the characters each day!!! Next week will be my family (self, dh & 3 sons-12, 10 & 6) with my parents and 90 year old grandmother (and her first trip to WDW!!!) My children enjoy sharing it with everyone and we have even left it at Guest Relations at different parks during the day (at the end of our trip when we knew we weren't going to meet anyone new).
We have needed a double stroller up to our trip in October, 2004, so that was a great safe place to keep the album (inside a backpack). This past May we purchased a rolling backpack, which worked out great for the autograph book. This year my grandmother will be in a wheelchair, so the backpack will fit nicely on the back of that.
Our oldest son is getting tired of the character hunts (he just turned 12), because he's more interested in rides, rides, rides right now. Our 10 yo will always be my Character Hunt Buddy, though. The boys have also found that there have been special perks with sharing our special treasure, too, though!!
We have met 108 Disney characters, 26 Star Wars characters & have yet to meet about 64 different Disney characters (that includes ALL characters - including those who appear in parades, but may not be available for Meet & Greets - but there's always hope!!
When we were there in May I was talking with an Entertainment CM who asked me if I had been to MK the day before during the Regis & Kelly taping, because there were 70 different characters out, including DUMBO!!!
Sorry this was so long, but I hope that I gave lots of autograph book ideas!
Deb (Off to do some more packing so that I can relax tomorrow, before leaving on Thursday! - NOT!! LOL)
), and other CM stickers for the other characters not included in the snap pack. (I'm a CMC and I only use CM products, BTW.)
I did the have the scrapbook ready and decorated thing and found that we stood in line long enough to have more than enough time to find the right pages. I also tied a ribbon with a charm on the end to mark the right page. We put them in ziplock freezer bags to protect them from rain and water. The only thing my DH complained about was the weight of lugging 2 of them around in his backpack the whole trip. We saw 41 characters, counting all the different dressed Mickeys, Minnies, Donalds and so on. We didn't see Daisy, Jiminy Cricket, Cinderella's Mice, or Brer Rabbit. My kids like having their own "scrapbook" of their trip and I hardly had any work to do on them when we came back so I could work on my own 
