There was a time when we bought our autograph books online or at the parks when we got there. But then, I saw several posts about people making their own with clipart. So for our February trip last year, I decided to make the kids autograph books, but I wanted something a little more personal. I looked through our pictures and decided to try to use some pictures of the kids with their favorite characters. These autograph books were such a hit that I shared with an online blogging friend and have now decided to share with you. You might wonder why I would take the time to do this…
I take the time to make these for every trip now because the kids have had such great character interaction. Many times the characters want to flip through and see each different photo. When Jafar signed this page, he “told” his friend how offended he was to see Aladdin on this page, so he decided to cross Aladdin off.
As you can see above, I make the covers with clipart (some designed by others who have shared with me) and personalize them for each trip. The covers are laminated to keep them from getting bent. Sometimes, I take the finished autograph books to Staples to have them spiral-bound, and sometimes, I hole-punch them and use rings. I actually prefer the latter, so the pages can be taken out and put in a scrapbook later if the kids want to. Did you see how Minnie Mouse themed her autograph to the picture?
So, how do I make them? I start by deciding how many pages we need for our autograph book and try to make it in a number that is divisible by 4. Why, you might ask? Well, I print my autograph pages on Avery Postcards/Index Cards (#8577). These pages are normal letter-sized, but each sheet is divided into 4 perforated postcards. This makes each autograph page 5 1/2″ by 4 1/4″. For our trip later this year, I decided to make 72 autograph pages. This will take 18 sheets of 4 postcards. I have decided to use 12 different photos, so I will be printing out 6 sheets of each unique sheet (3) of 4 photos.
I personally use the free Avery software to create the sheets, but I’m sure that scrapbooking software or other design software would do fine, too. I set the picture opacity at 25% to make it where the photo can be seen, but the autograph can be seen, too. After I design a sheet and print it out, it looks like…
Then, we separated the individual pages, keeping like photos in their stacks. For the autograph books I made, that means 12 stacks of 6 photos each.
Next, we lined the stacks up in order. DS9 has to have his in a certain order, so he meticulously lined up his stacks. We went down the line taking a card from each stack and repeated until all the cards were gone. This resulted in each photo repeating every 12th page.
I used rings for these books, so I hole-punched all the pages. The kids and I designed the covers with clipart, and each cover was laminated and hole-punched. The books turned out like the finished books above. The kids can’t wait to take these new autograph books to Walt Disney World later this year!
Are you ready to make some autograph books?
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