If you’re in market for a guest book, this list includes 27 unique guest book ideas covers everything from wooden oars to a guitar. Guest sign in books are a fun addition to any event and a great way to personalize a graduation, wedding, or baby shower. I also love that a guest book can often double as an activity at the event.
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What is a guest book?
Generally, a guest book is a place for attendees to write well wishes to the guest of honor. A typical guest book would be white and have lined pages inside. This is a list of non traditional guest book ideas. When considering the guest book, ask the question:
What does the guest(s) of honor love to do?
Does she love playing scrabble or going to the lake? Have guests sign an oar, anchor, or buoys! If you have a game lover on your hands, have guests sign the back of a game board or a Jenga set. My goal when coming up with new guest book ideas is to create a useful memory.
Wedding Guest Book Ideas
I divided this post up into 3 sections, but you can adapt most of these guest book ideas for any event. For instance, a quilt guest book is under the wedding guest book ideas list, but it would also be adorable for a baby shower. Just make the quilt baby sized. A t-shirt quilt guest book would be super fun for a highschool graduation party. The graduate could take her sign in book/quilt to college!
1. Jenga
I love the idea of making a giant backyard Jenga set that way you have more room for guests to sign and what a fun backyard game!
2. Sign our quilt
3. Rocks
I write on rocks as souvenirs from vacation, but it works just the same as a guest book! All you need is a bowl full of smooth river rocks, a white paint pen and a glass vase to toss the signed rocks into.
4. Calendar Guest Book
5. Champagne Bottle
6. Game board
Scrabble, Clue, Monopoly, or Life would all be great game boards to serve as a unique guest book. Have a few permanent markers handy and let guests sign any where on the game board.
7. Turn photo strips into a scrapbook
This idea works great if you have a photo booth or even a Polaroid camera on hand for guests to use. Have a basket full of a props and a hand full of markers and this interactive guest book will make itself! Another great option is downloading the Simple Booth app and have an iPad set up on a tripod!
8. Fingerprints
All you need for this guest book is ink pads and a pre made drawing. Check out this Etsy seller for fingerprint guest books. There is everything from a simple family tree design to a lion complete with a finger print mane for a zoo themed wedding.
9. Metal Letter & Paint Pens
I have folks email and ask me where to find metal letters all the time! You can find most metal letters on Amazon. Here is a very similar letter “S” on Amazon. See more details from this beautiful wedding at Style Me Pretty.
10. Guest Log
This print screened guest log was oringially created by Baumbirdy, but no longer sold on Etsy.
11. Plates
Grab a few plain white plates in varying sizes to have guests autograph with metallic paint pins at the party. After the wedding, hang a plate collage in your dining room. These plate hangers from Amazon are the best.
12. Wooden Oars
Just add permanent markers and you’ve got yourself a unique guest book that’s perfect for the water lover. You can find inexpensive solid wood oars on Amazon. For more details from this gorgeous wedding, check out Style Me Pretty.
13. A wooden bench
Baby Shower Guest Book Ideas
14. Wooden blocks
15. Personalized note cards
If you’re hosting a baby shower, the mom to be note card is perfect for giving the new mama baby advice like favorite children’s book, but can also doubles as a guest book. After the shower, punch a hole in the corner of each card and use a ribbon to string them all together. Print the free printable personalized mom to be note cards here.
16. Thumbprint guest books
17. Mad Libs
18. Doodle in a person
I used this guest book at a book inspired baby shower I hosted for a friend. I had it on a desk as guests arrived and it proved to be a fun ice breaker activity for everyone. Each guest personalized a simple doodle character with colored pencils. Since the shower I was hosting was book themed, I had each guest add their favorite kids book in the flag above.
19. Baby’s 1st Alphabet book
My sister in law had this adorable Baby’s First Alphabet book set up at her baby shower and it proved to be such a fun activity for everyone. Here is the free printable template we used.
20. Favorite Book, Bible, Atlas, or Dictionary
A dictionary would be perfect for a graduation or wedding. Invite guests to circle a word that describes the couple or graduate and leave a note. I love the idea of a favorite kids book for a baby shower guest book. Here are few of my favorite baby shower guest book ideas:
- The Giving Tree
- Oh The Places You’ll Go
- Where the Wild Things Are
- The Wonderful Things You Will Be
- Guess How Much I Love You (used below)
Graduation Guest Book Ideas
21. Matted Picture Frame
22. Chalkboard Messages
A photo booth doubles as a fun activity for guests at an event, but it can also be turned into a guest book.
23. Guest Log
If you’re looking for an inexpensive, unique option guest book option, this guest log is perfect. All you need is a tree slice and You can use a real tree slice from your own back yard or buy a 13in slice on Amazon.
24. Guitar
25. Collaborative art peice
26. Globe or map
What a great collection! Those are some super clever ideas!
We just had a regular guest book at our wedding (it was in 1995 before anyone was doing anything cool) but I love these ideas. I still have guest book in my house now for overnight guests and might switch it over to one of these fun ideas!
I love the globe! But all the ideas are fantastic!
We are getting married in July and using the book idea. Our invitations were inspired by The Giving Tree, so we’re having everyone write in a copy of it. Happens to work well because the illustrations and content are so simple, there’s a ton of room for people to write notes or draw pictures or what have you!
LOVE that book 🙂 Happy wedding planning!
This is so fun! Makes me wish I could do my pre-pinterest wedding all over again!
I LOVE this list! How cute! We did the matted frame… 😉
Love these ideas – my sis is getting married in May – forwarding this to her.
I love the unique ideas here. Guest books to me make very little sense, people sign them then they get put away as a keepsake rarely ever brought out again. But to turn it into something that can be left out as art gives it a purpose to be on display.
Do you know where you can purchase those large letters to sign? I love it!!
I’d look on etsy…
my husband and i are both musicians so we used a black guitar and had everyone sign it with white paint pens – looks fantastic, and we play it still.
What a neat idea!
Oh my gosh these are all such great ideas! I would have to say that the postcards are a favorite (because I collect them), but the little envelopes and birthday calendar are great too!
We are using Guestbook Store. http://www.facebook.com/guestbookstore
I’ve never seen that! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Aleah, The only pictures that are mine are 12 (my BFF's wedding!) and 18 (a baby shower I did). The others you will have to click on the link to take you back to the original source. Although, I would check Hobby Lobby, Micheal's, Amazon, and Ebay for metal letters 🙂 Wood would work too!
Where did you find the Large letter S? I love the idea but can't seem to find one!
Thanks for including the jenga guestbook from my blog! It would be great if you could include the credit: Jennifer Roper via Oh Lovely Day. Thanks 🙂
Jamie, these are fantastic. I am getting married in December and am JUST starting planning. (I know, I know). I'm from upstate NY and the guest 'log' would be great, though I love the plate design (as long as it isn't a 'country stuffy' look) you put up.
Do you have a more close-up photo of the 'twigs in a vase' with some instructions? I haven't googled it but the photo of that one, as well, is incredible.
These are great ideas for my son's graduation in June… like the things he could take to his college room – #2,4,11, and 19 seem just perfect!
These are just awesome ideas for me and my soon-to-be hubby. I'm so excited 🙂
Great ideas! For my bridal shower, wedding, and baby shower, we used matted photos. Now that I'm seeing all these great ideas, I can't wait for the next event. For my baby shower, the matted picture was a great ultrasound shot, and everyone wrote in either pink or blue because we didn't know the baby's sex.
We are using the guest "Book" Bench!
What great ideas! Too bad my wedding is over, but I'm filing these away for future use!
It just dawned on me that it is a guest "log"! ha! thank you 🙂 i'm going to change that now on the post!
love the guest 'log' print. a lot.
Our wedding was very small–we rented a beach house and had family and friends stay for the weekend in the NINE bedrooms, then we had the house for our honeymoon. Because it was so small, each guest was able to take an entire page to write a personal note, give advice, etc. It's a treasure to this very day!
cute ideas! we did the matted photo. 🙂
I love the balloons! Some great ideas here. Thank you for sharing.Hugs and wishes for a joy filled weekend.
These are fun ideas. We had the matted picture frame and I love that we choose that one. It has been hanging up in our hallway ever since and I think every house guest we have had has stopped to look at it.
I like the plate and balloon guest books!
We did a tree/leaf guestbook, but instead of thumb prints we had self-adhesive leaves that people signed and stuck on the tree. After we matte and frame it, we're going to include it in our dining room gallery wall.
I like the small envelopes and Mad Libs! I also like the tree trunk because you could shadow box it. I like the idea of being able to put it on the way instead of it getting lost in a box/on a shelf somewhere
The guestbook at our wedding was similar to #12. I had a bunch of scrapbook pages with our engagement pictures on them and people signed and wrote notes on the scrapbook pages. Then the pages went straight into our wedding scrapbook so we can enjoy them!