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Home > Scrapbook Hints and Tips: Capturing Your Vacation Memories
Scrapbook Hints and Tips: Capturing Your Vacation Memories
When you go on your trip, you should think about what
things you'd like to include in your MouseMemories Book. Here are
some suggestions...
Get Pictures!
- First and foremost, get pictures with people in
them! Pictures with your
family and friends (as opposed to simply taking pictures of the
scenery) will be treasured. The other pictures are fine, but the
personal ones will be the most important in the long haul. Don't allow the reluctance of someone in the group to have their
picture taken keep you from taking candid ones. You'll be very
sorry if you have few or no pictures of any one that joined you
on the trip.
- Make sure that you take photographs "up close and
personal." Rather than taking long distance shots of your
children with a character, for example, get up close and get DOWN to
the level of your child, when taking the picture. Then you'll
have close-up shots that are much more personal.
- Make sure to get several group photographs
that include all of the people in your party.
- Get pictures of everyone's favorite attractions and
restaurants (with that person in the picture). Don't forget to
include
your children's favorites, especially since they might not speak up
(but don't worry, their opinions will be pretty obvious).
- Pictures of you, your family, and friends at your
resort will remind you of where you spent a large portion of y our
vacation time. Candid
pictures in the room and about the grounds will really remind you of
the trip you've experienced together.
- Get photos of the unique times you spent together including
meals, snacks, special things you did (including any tours).
Stopping to listen to Rod playing the piano on a Wednesday evening at
Coke Corner or watching the swing dancers on a Saturday night at
Disneyland, playing that round of miniature golf
at Fantasia Fairways, getting a hand "waxed" on the
boardwalk....these are the events that will be special to remember.
- Photos of the park and resort entrances and Disney
transportation (i.e. the monorails, trams, boats) can be used to
create great introductions and transitions within the album.
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Other Sources for Images:
- Buy postcards! For a relatively small amount
of money, you can get some
great pictures that you might not be able to take yourself (You do
comply when the Disney folks ask everyone to not use flash
photography, don't you?)
- Go ahead and buy that ride photo (such as Splash
Mountain, Tower of Tower, and Test Track) if it's a good one.
There's no other way to get a picture of
you "voluntarily" dropping 60 feet into a briar patch,
now is there? If you decide to get a nice frame, buy two
prints so you can put one in your album, too.
- If you think ahead, you can take a full album page
with you and have the park portrait artists actually draw you on
the page! If not, you can at least crop and mount an image
if it's small enough. New Orleans Square at Disneyland, the
Hall of Presidents at WDW's Magic Kingdom, and the France Pavilion
at Epcot are all places where you may find a "starving
artist."
- One last resource that you might want to use for
images is the official Birnbaum guidebooks. These books have
some artwork and pictures (black and white, generally) that may be
useful.
- One thing to consider is taking some time one evening
late in the trip for a photo hunt. Everyone in the group can
point out where various things happened during the vacation (don't
forget to take notes). You can even recreate some of those
candid moments (sure, it won't be as funny as when it happened for
real, but it will be a reminder and a fun addition to go along with
your journaling).
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Save Mementos!
- Keep copies of each park guidemap and special events
handouts (the handouts from the International Flower & Garden
festival, for example). The
guidemaps have great illustrations that you may want to crop (bring
home several clean copies, because you might want images from the
front and the back). You also may want to keep an extra copy
that can be kept in a
pocket in your album.
- Character autographs, especially if they are on
separate pages, can be cropped and mounted right along-side
photographs of the encounter. As an alternative, you might want
to actually take a compact size (5�" x 7") album with you
on the trip and use IT as the autograph book itself. You can
have the characters autograph one side, leaving the other side blank
for photos or journaling of the encounter.
- You may want to pick up an Epcot World Showcase Passport.
The cast member signatures and stamps will be a nice addition to your
album. You can try to use that compact size (5�" x
7") album for your passport stamps and autographs, too.
- Write a trip report or at least jot down some notes
of what happened during the trip. If you write a full report,
you'll be able to enjoy the narrative that goes along with the MouseMemories book.
Even if you choose not to take that much time, your notes will prove invaluable as you
journal (write the text into) your album.
- Menus and wine lists from your favorite meals will
look great with pictures from the restaurant. The idea of
taking the menu isn't really that far-fetched. If you ask your
waiter or waitress politely, they'll almost certainly allow you to take a menu
(or at least the "printed insert" portion.) The
descriptions of the meal, and the price list, will be fun to look over
for years to come. If you choose to dine at Victoria &
Albert's, the deluxe restaurant at the Grand Floridian Resort, you'll
be given a personalized "menu" that describes your
meal. Keep it!
- Your admission media, receipts, resort room key card, and other little things can add
some fun to your album, especially if they have some
special significance to the trip. (For example, on one of our trips, our then-3-year-old son insisted on opening the door
with our key card every time we returned to our room...a small
explanation of that, along with the key card itself, bring smiles to
our faces every time we see that page in our book.)
Disneyland and WDW are such a wonderful places for
creating memories with family and friends. If you put a little
effort into it, you'll have MouseMemories to last a lifetime!
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