In various places, I saw those beautiful folded book art pieces (like in these instructables: Book-Art-How-to-Fold-a-Book-into-a-Word, Folded-Book-Art-Best-most-clear-Tutorial-available ) - and as I am an avid reader and love books, paper and art, this was a wonderfully alluring combination!
So, I absolutely wanted to make my own! And of course I also wanted to use my own pattern, not just anything!
Looking into one of the instructables (How-to-Fold-a-Book-into-a-Word-The-original-tuto ), which describes the process of making your own pattern, I saw that the measuring and mapping from picture to page is a really tedious, time-consuming process, which can also go wrong in many places. And I realized that the number of free ready-to-fold patterns is a bit, .... mmmh, limited - you don't always want hearts...unless it's Valentine's day, of course.
As I'm also learning how to program, and am a fan of open source software, I thought I could combine this with the books to create something useful.
So I wrote a program which can turn your picture into a pattern for making book folding art.
This instructable is not about how to write that program, nor will I explain in detail how it works.
This instructable shows you how to use the program to make your own book art with your own pattern.
WARNING: The program was only tested on Linux. I do not know, nor can I test, if it also runs on a Windows or Mac OS operating system. If you find out if / how it works on those other, non-open source operating systems, please provide a hint in the comments for other users!
Update: Instructables user flogy4031 and I got it to work on Windows 7. flogy installed WAMP (from WAMP.org), a server environment for Windows, which did some of the configuration of php for him, and imagemagick. Then flogy still had to do some configuration to make the command line work (see linked videos in the comment section). I have now added a Windows version of the script to the github repository, which eliminates a problem caused by different behaviour of the Windows command line.
Thank you very much, flogy4031!
Update 2: As the configuration of php and imagemagick seems quite difficult on Windows for the non-geeks, I added the option to use a virtual machine (which is a little computer inside you computer, if you will). I think this is much easier for the Windows users, and it will also work on Mac OS/X. However, the download size is bigger. Go straight to option 2, if you prefer this!

To recycle your books and transform them into something really special, we’ve made a collection of 10 awe-inspiring book folding patterns that all book lovers will appreciate. Since it was a really hard task to find 10 free book folding patterns, we’ve included some patterns you can find with some extra price. 100% Free Book Folding Patterns. Discover ideas about Paper Folding Crafts. Foldedbookart Thousands of totally FREE book folding patterns. It has 379 pages with no insets. In A pdf.which is available immediately for INSTANT DOWNLOAD centralised for a 21cm book this is a pdf of number measurements that will allow you to create your. Book Folding Pattern, Bookami, CUSTOM INITIALS, 587 Pages/294 Folds, Free Book Folding Tutorial, Download Pdf, Anniversary, Weddings Gift Bookami 4.5 out of 5 stars (362) $ 5.32 Free shipping. There are 1403 free book folding patterns for sale on Etsy, and they cost $4.11 on average. The most popular color?

Update 3: As still many people had problems with understanding how to setup and use a virtual machine, and how to access their picture files on their real computer from there, and how to edit pictures to not contain transparencies, I decided to make a new version of the script, which should be a lot easier to use. This new version is now a python script, it requires installation of Python 2.7 and it also requires the installation of PILLOW. Install instructions for Python for Windows can be found here (also install pip!), then install PILLOW, as described here.

You can get the Python version of BookArtGeneratorhere. For usage, follow the instructions in the readme file. For understanding how to select a good image and book, what to do with the files the program creates and how to fold, jump to steps 3, 4 and 6 to 9, and for the rest, follow the instructions on your monitor.

Update 4: The python version also seemed to pose an insurmountable problem for many, as installing python, and pillow and pip requires to use the command line, which many people are unfamiliar with or even afraid of (don't fear! It's really not so bad!). After learning a little PHP, and after that, Python, I've started to learn Javascript.

The result of this can be foundin this really easy online version of the bookart generator(with added features, too!). So if you don't need an offline version, just visit my new website and use the online version. Tested with Firefox. If you've got any problems with other browsers (not with IE, I really don't care about that!), please report via a comment to the linked article on the website.

Enjoy! (and note the program licence if you decide to make derivative software).

First a quick intro about this site: We are your go to source for all things to do with the art of book folding. You can purchase pre-made patterns and custom patterns from us. You can also buy and even sell custom folded books here. And of course for the diy-er you can learn the art yourself with free book folding patterns with tons of written and video tutorials to enjoy this art as much as we do.

Now a bit about book folding or folded book art: It is an art all unto itself. A form of origami that takes a book and turns it into a piece of visual art. Usually using words, numbers or silhouette pictures as a template to create the folded art. There are many ways to achieve this beautiful art. And what we do here is appreciate all of it. From the simple to the complex creations.

And finally the wrap up: So on the technical side Wikipedia refers to book folding as a category of “altered books”. But for those that create, buy and sell this form of book art we know it simply as book folding. How long have people been turning books into pieces of visual art? Your guess is as good as ours. But what we do know is that re-purposing or up-cycling a book and turning it into a work of visual art is cool and very therapeutic for many (including us). And the art of book folding is something someone of any age can enjoy. Please enjoy our site and learn, buy and sell with us.

Free Book Folding Patterns To Download For Pc

And remember these make great gifts for any occasion (such as Birthdays, Anniversaries, Weddings, Baby Showers, Mother and Father’s day, Christmas, and more).