DIY Disney Autograph/Scrapbook

It's crafty time! After discussing the Disney trip with my partner in crime I was worried that Roo would feel left out because Boo has an autograph book and always has it signed. My family has never done the autograph thing, but with everything being so match-y and even for our birthday princesses I decided she should have something. I decided as long as I didn't spend any money on it it would be a nice way to de-stress.

Materials

• Thin Cardboard (ex: cereal box, shirt box, etc)
• Card Stock in a variety of colors
• Scrapbooking paper
• Glue Stick
• Crop-a-dile/hole punch
• Disney Embellishments (Stickers, Paper, Pictures of Characters, etc)
• Scissors
• Glitter Pens/glitter
• Ribbon
• Metal Rings

I plucked a silver shirt box from our recycle bin for the cover. Mike helped me cut two even sized rectangle pieces about 6x8in. I wanted mine a little larger than the standard autograph books because I wanted to be able to add photos, tickets, etc after the trip. Once we had these two silver rectangle cover pieces Mike suggested we emboss it. We printed an image of Minnie Mouse's head (just the outline) and then laid the paper over the silver side. Pressing down very firmly with a pencil we traced Minnie. Viola! Super simple.

Next, I flipped the cover over and cut a piece of scrapbook paper to glue over top of the cardboard. I chose a silver sparkly piece of paper because I wanted to create the bibbidi bobbidi boo moment. After I had my magic sparkly background I added a Cinderella sticker in the corner. Next, I drew a pumpkin on orange paper. I traced a large circle and wrote "Princess Riley's Birthday Adventure 2014" then I erased some of the edges and made them more pumpkin-shaped. I used paper with a subtle texture and drew lines with colored pencils and markers. After I had my pumpkin I used my Martha Steward vine cutter and green paper to make pumpkin vines. I placed the pumpkin in the top corner and then make vines shooting out in all directions as if the pumpkin were caught in the moment right before it became the carriage.

I kept the back cover super simple. I just put a Tinkerbell sticker in the center and a "Disney Memories" sticker beneath that. These are all things I had laying around, a lot of people have given me their excess craft supplies especially Disney themed (and I soooooo appreciate them). If you're not as fortunate as I am most of the background paper and stickers are available at any craft store or even Amazon. Then I flipped it over and covered the ugly cardboard inside with this adorable rainbow Mickey silhouette paper. It didn't line up exactly right so I added some chocolate brown ribbon on either side. I'm so in love with that paper!

With covers down it was time to make pages. I traced the cover onto solid card stock and cut ten pages. Next I embellished each page with stickers, background paper, ribbon, glitter. I just choice themes for each page based on my craft supplies. I have a vintage fab five page, a Snow White and the seven dwarfs page, a Cinderella's castle page, a mad tea party page, and an under the sea page to name a few. When adding glitter I made sure I stuck to one area so it wouldn't cause bumps in signatures. Feel free to embellish front and back I did for a few of mine. As I finished pages I laid them under a heavy book to dry (unless they had wet glitter). When I couldn't find the exact thing I wanted a picture of/sticker for I did a Google image search and printed it out. One of my favorite pages I made has a princess group shot that I printed that includes Aurora in the now rare blue dress (my favorite!). Remember to steer clear of putting anything to close to the left edge where you need to punch your holes.

Now for me, deciding the order of the pages was tricky. When I cut my card stock I split up the colors neatly, but when embellishing the pages I'd changed the which pages should be together. I cleared my table of craft supplies and moved the pages around and around until I was happy. Next, I used a scrap piece of cardboard and measured the left side of a page against it, marking "X"s for my three holes. Then I used my template and crop-a-dile to punch holes in the covers and pages.

Once all the holes were punched I had to put each ring through one page at a time. I got the smallest size, thinking there would be less wear and tear, but if your planning to continue adding pages the larger size rings are probably faster to put on. Once each ring was closed I gently tested turning pages. My holes turned out to be a bit to far in so I trimmed the edge (again leave yourself that margin, just in case). Once the pages turned freely, I chose some red ribbon with white polka dots a la Minnie and cut three strips. You just need enough to tie little knots, they don't need to be even. I tied a ribbon around each ring. Ta-da!