Disney Details #3: Autograph Books

Getting his book ready!

This Disney DIY is still a work in progress, but so far I'm in love!  These autograph/scrapbooks are a true labor of love.  They are time consuming for someone like me who's a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to scrapbooking.  On our last trip to Disney we weren't sure how into the character autographs the big brother would be.  We bought him one of the standard books at the last minute when we ran into Buzz Lightyear, his favorite character EVER!  The book definitely did the trick, but thanks to Pinterest I wanted something bigger and better this year for him, and the fussbucket too. 

After pinning a million ideas my friend Jennie & I got together to work on our books and I started on the inside pages first because I had an idea and couldn't find any paper I liked at our local Michaels.  I really wish we had a nice scrapbooking store, but I guess it's not all the rage like it used to be.  Either way, we had fun working on them and I plan to continue to build pages over the next couple months, but wanted to share the general idea of what I'm doing. 

I always draw up a little design for my pages before I do them.  It helps me visualize what I'm doing, even though I always have to fiddle with things as I put it together.  I love how the covers turned out!  They are so fun!  I'll be adding some ribbon to the top, but wanted to wait till I was done with the inside pages so it's easier to turn them all.   Yes, they're a little sparkly, but it's all part of the magic, right!

The inside cover has a great fireworks and castle scene!  My plan is to put a family picture opposite it after the trip. 

The rest of the pages follow the same model of scrapbook page on the "top" and autograph page on the "bottom".  The boys will get an autograph on the bottom page for each character and we'll put a picture of them with the character on the top. 

I have quite the list of characters to do based on our character dining and those C got autographs for last time.  I figure then there will be blank pages for any who pop up that we get autographs for and we can do the decorating when we get back home. 

I did make the books almost exactly the same based on the papers I had on hand.  My main reason for this is that even though my kids are 10 years apart, there is still that sibling rivalry so I didn't want anyone to feel left out. 

Now the challenge is to finish these before our trip!  The autograph pages are relatively quick once I put my mind to it and find paper I like that matches the characters.  That's the catch 22!  I have one more week to work on them before C gets home, then they'll have to wait till he's back in school so we can keep the surprise element of the trip.  This is the one project I wish I'd gotten more done of, but a week is a week so we'll see what we can check off the list between now and then.  Either way, they'll get done and I'm positive that these will only increase the magic for my kids, not only for the trip, but for years to come!