My Budget autograph/passports tip...

[Cindy B]

We told the kids that they had $50 each for our trip, and they cold buy autograph books/passports from that.

(This was just so they could budget thier own money)

They said that we can make our own. And so, with the help of DH, they did.

They used one pack of blank 4 x 6 white index cards.

For the autograph book, they did a Disney font and it says her name and autograph books, and a clip art with Minnie, with the font/picture centered on the front to be bound (more on that later)

My son cover is the same, but with Mickey.

And the back cover is a If I am lost....


The inside are remaining index cards.

The passports has Disney font and I have seen Epcot clip art and also the castle (yes, I know MK, but thats what they wanted) and also blank cards.

For binding, he will go to Staples and have them spiral bound.. cost $1 a piece to bind (lamination $1 extra front/back)

Cost: 47 cents for 100 cards
$1 to $2 per binding/lamination

Two autograph books, and two passports!

 

[Sammy]

Clever idea!

You can also keep an eye out at your local Dollar store. I was able to pick up three hardbound autograph books for $1 (of course!!) each. They were imprinted with the word "Autographs" on the cover and the kids just added some Disney stickers.

 

[Cindy B]

I checked all our dollar stores before we did this. We aren't local to Florida so they didn't have them there.

The last trip we did we did this as well, and all the CM's when signing them ooohed and aaahed about them. Some even said the passport was better than the one at Epcot....

They liked picking out the clip art and customizing it as well.

 

[bigsis1970]

Our homemade autograph books are the 4x6 scrapping book w/ the heavy card stock paper spiral bound ( think 1 paid 3.99 for each at Michael's ) then we used stickers of each character per page front and back and on the cover they used disney alphabet stickers to spell out their names and used extra stickers to decorate . and we did leave a few pages blank ( like for tweedle dee and dum ect.. ) it was soo much fun we will be doing that again for our next trip alto we might get 5x7 books this time and then maybe can have the character sign on the top half and put a photograph of them with the character on the bottom half.. Michelle

 

[Local_Girl]

We made our own autograph books last year, and I plan to again this year. The only thing we will do differently is make sure the covers of the book are a firm cardboard so the characters have something firm to hold onto when they write. Last years books were index cards slid into a 4x6 photo album, but the album's front and back covers were a flimsy cardboard. I noticed that it was difficult for the characters to sign autographs. I've seen the Michael's books mentioned...that's probably what we'll do!

For anyone considering this, you sometimes get extra attention from the characters who are impressed with your personalized books!

 

[melee]

Our 3 kids ( age 4, 6 and 9 at the time) made their own passports for our 2001 trip. Someone on this site told where to find Mickey written in foreign languages. The kids pasted those and the country's flag on each page. We just used index cards and punched two holes in the margin. We then tied the passports with pretty ribbon. The kids got lots of attention from CMs in the countries at EPCOT. After the CMs wrote in their native languages, I took the time to write the translations on the back of the index cards. We had left blank pages in the back of the passports. These served as autograph pages at our Chef Mickey breakfast. Our girls had drawn their own pictures of Mickey and Minnie on the covers. It was fun to have the characters make a fuss over the drawings. After pointing at each hand drawn picture of herself, Minnie hugged my daughters and held each passport to her heart! All in all, we saved over $30, had fun making the passports, and ended up with great memories!

 

[kimbac3]

I printed out all your great ideas. I'll be heading to Michael's tomorrow!!!
Thanks Again!!!
Kimba