DIY Book Art

Every summer my husband and I go to SoWa, an open market in Boston. Many vendors do "homemade" crafts and one such vendor had book pages with images printed on them, framed, selling for $40 and up. While the frames were nice, and the pictures certainly looked cool, I can't pay $40+ for something I can make myself. Looking at the images it was clear that all I needed was some old book pages, pictures from the Internet, and a printer.

This Instructable will show you how to put together artisan quality book art using only a couple items you likely already have lying around the house. These pages make for great decorations (I have some up at home and in my classroom), gifts, and more!

-Color printer

-PNG or JPG images

-Book pages

-Picture frames (you can get inexpensive plastic ones from A.C. Moore for $1)

I like to select pages from old dictionaries that match the theme of the picture being made. Barring that, I'll use pages that have fallen out of books (which sadly, happens a lot in my classroom).

Whatever size the page is, make sure you have frames or mat board that will fit it. I'm using a 6x8" frame, so I cut the page I'm using to fit that.

You want to pick an image that has an invisible background, that way when you print it, a white background or other unwanted additions don't show up. You can find these easily by doing a Google Image search for the desired image + png. Images that will have no annoying background showing up tend to have a "cross hatch" background as seen in the above photo. This type of background will not show up when you move the image to your document.

Once you have your desired images, set up a Word or Pages doc and drag the image into it. Set the page margins to match the size of the book pages you are using. If you're using Pages, go to FILE-->Page Setup. I haven't checked word, but I imagine it's the same.

If the image you want seems too dark, you can change the opacity and lighten it. You can also use the "rotate" feature to move to your image to your desired position.

When you are ready, put your book page into your printer and print!

The first two pictures are of the ship Serenity from Firefly. I made it about 2-3 years ago, and if you notice, you'll see the page the image is printed on is a dictionary page related to travel.

The TARDIS I made today and it is printed on an old college dictionary page about time.