As the days count down and I get closer and closer to my move in date for my Disney College Program (August 7th!!), I'm trying to find ways to fill my time. I'm also looking for things to make and ways to remember my time working for the mouse.
I know that I want to try my hardest to meet every character that does meet and greets, so I decided to make an autograph book. The ones you can buy at Disney are super over-branded, don't have enough pages for my liking, and are frankly kind of tacky.
I researched some methods on Pinterest and Youtube and decided on a variation of this tutorial found on Pinterest.
For starters, I bought this set of blank 5x8 index cards from OfficeMax. This size allows there to be a 4x6 photo put on one of the sides.
I then went to JoAnn craft store to get the rest of the supplies. I got a pack of cheap watercolor pages, a set of watercolors and a few brushes.
Here was my set up for the watercoloring portion:
The watercolors were approximately $10 for 24 different colors, which gave me a good assortment of colors to work with. I then purchased a fluffy brush to do the actual painting and then the coarser brush I kept dry in order to blend the colors and soak up extra water. This method ended up working rather well for me.
I made two books - one for myself and one for my roommate, Tori.
This is the only picture I got of a watercolored sheet, I forgot to take pictures of the others before I cut them. But for mine I watercolored two sheets with my favorite colors (one for the front cover, one for the back). I just did random patterns until I got what I liked.
Then I cut them down to 5x8 in order to fit as the covers of the books.
Using a gold calligraphy pen that I already had purchased to decorate my graduation cap with, I tested the penmanship on the scrap pieces cut from the watercolor pages.
This is what the front and back covers of my book ended up looking like! I'm really pleased with how they came out.
I got this idea from the blog post linked above, I printed "PHOTO" on one side of every index card so a character doesn't accidentally sign there. The first time I did this, I made the text too dark and you could see it through the other card, so I recommend making it as light as possible. My cards had this weird crease on one side of them so I printed the text on that side so the photo will cover it up.
Then I designed this cute first page for Tori (my roommate) and I to fill in some information about our programs! I thought this was a nice touch that we could look back on and be happy we had. And I'm thinking we will take a picture together our first day living together and our last day together and put them on the front and back cover, respectively.
Printed out, this is what they looked like! At this point I'm thrilled with the books, but there's still a few steps left.
I wanted a page to put in the back and I ended up designing this simple one.
I also touched up the covers a bit to make the text stand out more.
I wanted to add a gold edge to the books to add another elegant touch. I went to Home Depot to get 3 things: c-clamps, gold spray paint, and two pieces of scrap wood. An employee was kind enough to find me two small pieces of wood that I could have for no charge, and I purchased two c-clamps and a can of gold spray paint for ~$10.
I started by putting a piece of wood on either side and then using the clamps to hold it all together. The wood wasn't quite big enough and it was a huge pain to keep moving it around. So I ended up just putting a plastic bag on my hand and holding the pages together tightly while using light sprays of paint at a time. I also put 2 extra index cards on either side of the stack to avoid getting paint on the actual pages of the book.
They came out looking like this.
Then I had the front and back covers laminated at OfficeMax. I asked him to use the 10 mil lamination pouch instead of the standard 5 mil to make them stronger and more sturdy.
After those were done, I had the books spiral bound as it makes it easier for characters to hold and its easier to open than a comb bind. It cost around $12 for both books.
And voila! Here are the completed books!
The golden edge featuring my golden retriever, Duncan!
Signature on the right, picture with the character on the left.
I'm so happy with the finished product, I love the originality of it, you will never find another autograph book like it. I can't wait to get all kinds of autographs during my program! It possible I spent as much or maybe even a little more making these than I would on one from Disney, but it was worth it to me.
The finishing touch is a temporary one - assigning pages to characters. I want them to all be grouped together but I don't want to print names on the pages. So instead, I just wrote the names of characters on post its and put them on the page I wanted their autograph. I want the princesses and princes together, the Pooh characters, the Fab Five, etc. So the post it notes allow me to assign pages while still keeping the pages simple.
So that's it! If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them.
Thanks for reading, and have a magical day!
Kelly
