Where do I even begin to attempt to make an Autograph book?

[sher92]

I absolutely LOVE some of the designs on this board for the autograph book but am seriously so lost and confused as to where to even begin??!!! We are leaving on Oct 1 and want to make one for my DD who is almost 3. I have so many questions:
Do you just pick certain characters and put them in your book and that's where you have the characters at Disney sign them?
Do you put blank pages in for other characters that you may not have put in the book?
How in the world do you decide on which characters to even include?
For the images that are in Photobucket, can I save them to my account, then how would I print them out on cardstock?

Any other advice you have would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much! I'm so excited to begin to make one, but need some serious assistance! LOL!

Sherri

 

[TinkerbelleAbbysMom]

I am currently making one for DD2 for our sept trip. After looking here on DISboards, I realized you could print out clipart (why I never thought of that?) onto cardstock. I googled Disney Clipart and this great page came up..it will be one of the top ones. I was able to download just about every character you could think of. Personally I am making one for most all of the characters, while I am sure I will leave a few out or have a few that the characters can't be found. I plan to include a few blank pages as well just in case we see a char that I didn't make a page for (like I figure sebastian doesn't walk around). I have printed the char and then I used scissors or a "scalpel" (can't think of the right word but a razor bade thingy) to trim around the edge. I will then glue them to a piece of card stock. I think I am going to make them 5x7 but not exactly sure yet. Then I am going to temporarily bind them with metal rings. I figure this will be the easiest to use to flip through while inthe park. Once we are home, I will use the pretty ribbons,etc for finishing touches. I also found a heavy cardstock to make the front a back which will not only act as a cover but hopefully offer protection for everything. Hope this helps. I haven't explored everything on all of the posts but I think this will work pretty well.

GOOD LUCK

 

[MJAJmom]

Having custom made autograph cards is so much fun!! It really enhances the character experience. Plus they are more fun to look at after your trip is over. You're right, it can be very overwhelming. So, here are some steps to get started:

1. Create your list of characters
You will have to do some research here. Start first with your character meals and identify which characters at at each meal. Then work on characters in each park. You can browse Steve Soars Live Entertainment schedules by park to see the character meet and greet times (http://pages.prodigy.net/stevesoares/). Then you can search this site with keywords like "Epcot characters", DHS characters, etc.. to learn more about characters at the parks. Try to figure out which characters you would most like to meet and make sure you have a card printed for them.

2. Decide on a card size
Most folks use 4x6inch size, others have made books that are 8x8inches.

3. Browse the designers photobuckets and download the designs
Lots of great designs on this forum, my favorites are ChaosCent, Donatalie and AreWeThereYet. You can browse their photobuckets to see the cards. They organize them into subsets of Characters cards and Character Meals cards. They also have a generic card for each park to use in case you didn't have a card handy for that character. Create a file folder on your PC to save all your cards. Open the picture in photobucket, right click on the image, select Save Picture As, and then select your file directory on your PC to save it in. Pretty easy.

4. Print out the cards
You can print them yourself on index cards or using cardstock paper if you have a decent printer. Others take them to be printed at photo shops like Kinkos or Walmart.

5. Decide how to organize them
You can have them spiral bound in a book like format. Some punch a single hole in the corner and use a circular binder ring or ribbon to hold them together. Others put them in a photo album to look through them. You can make one large book or you can make a book organized by the 4 parks.

6. Hand them to the characters to sign
Hand the book to the characters to sign, opened up to their page. Or use a small clipboard with the individual page on it to have the characters sign it.

I think the hardest parts are figuring out the characters you want to see, and then getting the cards printed. But it is so much fun.

 

[sher92]

Thank you so much for the step by step info and instructions!! I really do appreciate it! It's very daunting at first to think of what I need to do, esp. since I'm not very creative at all! But I'm very excited to begin it, I know my DD will just LOVe it!