What should the characters sign?

[Jupiter&Wolfe]

I want something cool and really memorable for the characters to sign. We've done autograph books before, and we have a solid collection for that, but it's really just a book with a bunch of signatures. I want something that I can use or at least look at without digging through my closet to find.

Any ideas? I was thinking of t-shirts, but I'm not so sure about that...so throw out any other ideas please!

 

[Amy&Dan]

I have seen people take an 8 x 10 photo for them to sign, a tee shirt, a baseball cap, a canvas bag and I saw one lady having them sign a coffee mug with some sort of special pen last month at WDW.

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

I ordered the "Disney Junior Encyclopedia of Animated Characters: Including Characters from Your Favorite Disney Pixar Films" from Barnes & Noble for our September trip. We'll have the characters sign next to their entry in the book. It is pre-order now but shipping July 21st.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Di...d-Characters/Ml-Dunham/e/9781423116707/?itm=1

 

[pinkblush]

I ordered the "Disney Junior Encyclopedia of Animated Characters: Including Characters from Your Favorite Disney Pixar Films" from Barnes & Noble for our September trip. We'll have the characters sign next to their entry in the book. It is pre-order now but shipping July 21st.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Di...d-Characters/Ml-Dunham/e/9781423116707/?itm=1

I pre-ordered the same thing for our upcoming trip.

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

I can't wait for them to come!!!

 

[Kayla's Mom]

I ordered the "Disney Junior Encyclopedia of Animated Characters: Including Characters from Your Favorite Disney Pixar Films" from Barnes & Noble for our September trip. We'll have the characters sign next to their entry in the book. It is pre-order now but shipping July 21st.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Di...d-Characters/Ml-Dunham/e/9781423116707/?itm=1

Oh my gosh! What a great idea (and cute book too!). I love this -- I was just telling DD that I wasn't going to make yet ANOTHER autograph book for our trip in November. I told her that we would just take the same one we used earlier this year and try and get different autographs. This will be a perfect alternative! Thanks!

 

[pinkblush]

I can't wait for them to come!!!

I can't wait either...it looks like such a cute book!


I also found the "Disney Magic Kitchen Cookbook" which also looks really cute...it looks like you can't get it from Barnes and Noble though, it would have to be from one of the resellers selling through their site.


http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Magic-Kitchen-Cookbook/Stephanie-Karpinske/e/9780696237324

Maybe I need both?

 

[Canyon girl]

I went to Sams Club and got the Avery postcards (blank with 4 to a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet). I then took pictures of the kids with their favorite characters (in Avery's program) and lightened to about 15 - 20% of normal print. I printed out these pictures (12 sheets of 4/sheet for a total of 48 postcard size pages). I printed special covers for front and back and took all pages to our local Fedex/Kinkos. I had them laminate the front and back covers and then spiral-bind the entire stack of pages. That way the autograph book is personalized with the kids' pictures in the background of the autograph. Once I figured out the procedure for lightening, it really didn't take long.

 

[ballarinamom]

We were in the same boat. How many autograph books can a kid have?!?!?!?! So our last trip we had them sign a pillow case. I then made a transfer of an 8x10 of us infront of the castle and ironed it on the front. The autographs surrounded the picture. DD keeps it on her bed. I also did one for DMIL since it was her first trip to DL
This next trip, I bought a really nice canvas bag from Hobby Lobby. It looks like those great LLBean bags but for only $10. I plan to have the characters autograph around the bag and iron on another photo to the front pocket. DD can use it as her school book bag, What I like about this idea is that I can keep a piece of cardboard inside to stability and keep the pens inside while I carry it over my shoulder

 

[Jupiter&Wolfe]

Ah! The Canvas Bag Idea sounds perfect! Thanks guys, that's just the idea I needed that was out of reach from my mind!

 

[Sleepless Knight]

You may also want to look into having the characters sign pictures of themselves like you might find on the cover art for DVDs or so forth. The only character autograph I've ever gotten was when I had Mary Costa (the voice of Princess Aurora) sign a cardstock advertisement for the film's run at the El Capitan Theatre for the 50th anniversary. The next day I had Disneyland's Princess Aurora sign the same picture.

When she realized who had signed in her usual spot on such pictures, she told me that she wished the 3 good fairies were around so they could sign the picture too.

 

[AlabamaPrincesses]

We saw a family with a great idea. They brought white 8x10 frame mat to have signed by all of the characters and they planned to put a picture from the trip in the frame.

Another family bought white Disney hats and had characters sign the hat. Be sure to bring a fabric pen for this one.

 

[PhatKat]

We are planning our 1st DL trip and am wondering what the autograph books look like. Does anyone have pictures? The Disney book you have mentioned you ordered from Barnes and Noble is it very big? I just wonder about carrying it around all day.

 

[mom4princesses]

One year I took one of the story books that have a bunch different stories in it. I just had the characters sign on one of the pictures of their story so we can remember how we met the character in the story when we read about them. The kids love it.

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

We are planning our 1st DL trip and am wondering what the autograph books look like. Does anyone have pictures? The Disney book you have mentioned you ordered from Barnes and Noble is it very big? I just wonder about carrying it around all day.

Here's a link to Park Merchandise you can purchase through the Disney website (they may have more in the parks...).
http://www.disneystore.com/disney-parks/autograph-books-pens/c/70997/

The B&N book hasn't been released yet so I'm not sure how big it is.

 

[pinkblush]

We are planning our 1st DL trip and am wondering what the autograph books look like. Does anyone have pictures? The Disney book you have mentioned you ordered from Barnes and Noble is it very big? I just wonder about carrying it around all day.

I haven't received the book yet, but I looked on Amazon and it says it is a paperback, 192 pages, and the dimensions are 10.8 x 7.9 x 0.6 inches.

 

[specialks]

The book isn't released until July 21st so there is no way of know the exact weight/size. The above poster did a good descriptor - you could try to find a similar book in your home and see what it feels like. Amazon lists it's shipping weight as 1.6 lbs. Seems easy enough to carry to me.

Thanks to the posters that recommended this book. I had considered getting the small Golden Books of the often seen characters but this might be a better idea.

 

[renda460]

I have the last edition of the Encyclopedia of Characters and my kids love to have it signed. The characters also make a big deal about signing something that has them on it. It has become a challenge each trip to find characters we haven't gotten signatures for yet. My book is hardcover but isn't too bad to carry around. I may get the newer paperback version as it seems to be smaller/lighter, and I want the new characters.

One word of advice to anyone buying the book - bring some large clips that you can use to separate the pages. Often multiple characters sign together and like to move quickly. To prevent flipping through pages while the characters are waiting, we use the clips to hold the pages we need. We put the clips in place while we wait in line, then my kids can easily find the pages they need while signing.

We have also done the photo mattes and t-shirts. I am looking for another idea for our trip next month. I thought about a baseball for my son, but wondered if that is to small for the characters to sign.

 

[mom4princesses]

One word of advice to anyone buying the book - bring some large clips that you can use to separate the pages. Often multiple characters sign together and like to move quickly. To prevent flipping through pages while the characters are waiting, we use the clips to hold the pages we need. We put the clips in place while we wait in line, then my kids can easily find the pages they need while signing.

Along this idea, I used the sticky note tabs. This way you can write the characters name on the tab and put it on the page you want them to sign.

 

[Mugglemama]

I went to Sams Club and got the Avery postcards (blank with 4 to a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet). I then took pictures of the kids with their favorite characters (in Avery's program) and lightened to about 15 - 20% of normal print. I printed out these pictures (12 sheets of 4/sheet for a total of 48 postcard size pages). I printed special covers for front and back and took all pages to our local Fedex/Kinkos. I had them laminate the front and back covers and then spiral-bind the entire stack of pages. That way the autograph book is personalized with the kids' pictures in the background of the autograph. Once I figured out the procedure for lightening, it really didn't take long.

i did something similar to this, because i have spiral binding equipment at home (i design and make memory books).

for my son who loves Toy Story, i designed the front and back cover to look like the yellow/red plaid of Woody's shirt (i wanted something really different than what we could find in the parks).

i've still got to design covers for my other son and my daughter (i think my son wants something in a donald duck theme, and dd8 will probably want something that has to do with the princesses). i also personalized the front covers, (ie: Jacob's Disneyland Autograph Book).

i decided to do these because the autograph books you buy in the gift shops at DLR have flimsily (is that a word?) glued pages, and the pages just start falling out after you've had the book a few years. my son was really upset that the pages with the autographs were just falling out.

i also use heavy cardstock (110 lb.) for the autograph pages, and that coupled with the spiral binding, should mean these autograph books won't fall apart. i made them in a 5x7 size.

i tried to insert the photo here, but all it did was insert the link. grrr. oh well, if anyone is interested in the photo, you can click on the link here: