DIY Autograph Book for Kids to Make
It’s almost Disney time!! We have some VERY excited kids, and we are busy getting ready for our trip. It’s been 2.5 years for them, which I’m sure feels like an eternity. I’m getting my park bag ready, and I need to make sure to leave room this time for an autograph book. One of the things my youngest is most excited about is meeting characters. Fortunately, quite a few characters are meeting again after a long stretch of social distancing.
We have bought plenty of the official Disney autograph books, but we have also had a lot of fun making our own. I’ll share what we did this time, and then I’ll also share what we’ve done in the past.
This particular book was very simple to make. We used a spiral-bound sketchbook, some stickers, and some markers.
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Truthfully, *I* didn’t do anything. I ordered the supplies, and then my 10-year-old ran with it. To decorate the cover, he sorted through the stickers and picked out his favorites. The pack I ordered just had the Sensational Six, but there are so many sticker options out there. He decided where they should go on the cover and stuck them on.
After he was done, he decided the book needed one last touch, and he asked to use our label maker to spell out “Autograph Book.” So cute.
For the inside, he went through a list of characters that are currently meeting in the parks and chose which ones he’s interested in meeting. He found pictures of those characters online to help him draw them. He loves Tsum Tsums, and the characters in that form were much easier for him to draw. I thought that was pretty smart of him.
I have a feeling we’ll be meeting Pluto every chance we get.
There is plenty of extra room in the book, so if we happen to come across any characters not on the list, we can get their signatures and add pictures later.
Our very favorite markers to have characters sign with are these retractable Sharpies. I bought a new pack for this trip, but we have been using them for as long as I can remember.
Other autograph ideas
Apparently I haven’t always been good about taking pictures, but I can at least tell you about them…
We did something similar one trip using index cards and a little photo album. The kids drew pictures of the characters on index cards, and we put them in a 4×6 photo album we probably got for a dollar or two. When we met each character, we’d pull out their card and have them sign it. The kids loved making it, and the characters loved seeing themselves!
Another twist on that idea involves a pillowcase. I had the kids draw pictures of characters on iron-on paper, and then I cut them out and ironed them onto a pillowcase. We had the characters sign with fabric markers, and we traveled with a little clipboard to make it easier for them. We also tried to fold up the pillowcase in a way that made it as easy as possible. You can see below that it worked out both folded and loose.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the autograph books you can buy in the parks, but I do have to say that we have gotten some amazing character interaction with these homemade ideas. Some of the drawings were done by a 4-year-old, so not necessarily easily recognizable out of context, but the characters fussed over them as though they were masterpieces. Just another example of magic in the Disney parks.
