elastic band bookmark tutorial

My fried JF turned 30 last Saturday.
This guy has such a unique taste I just can't keep up with - meaning, I adore his taste but I still have no idea what to get him as a present. Since it was his 30th birthday and I didn't want to experiment with presents, I decided to just ask him what he wanted (boring, I know). He, being a crime/thriller fan, told me to get him a particular murder mystery book. Okay, done.

But, I can't just give him a book, right?
So I was thankful when my brain got a sudden inspiration a few days before his birthday: a knife bookmark to match the murder mystery book!

It's very easy to make, but I was in the mood to make a tutorial anyway, so here goes nothing:

You'll need:
- flat elastic band
- cardboard
- thin felt sheets in white and black
- glue, scissors, pencil, black felt-tip pen

1. Tie the elastic band around the book cover like shown on the picture. Make it fit just right, don't pull too hard or too loose. (Oh, the book is not the murder mystery one :))

2. Cut off the ends close enough to the knot. Your elastic band should look like this now.

3. Next, use your drawing skill to draw your version of a convincing Rambo knife on the cardboard (I consulted Google Image for reference...)

4. Cut it out, then use it to trace another one on the cardboard. Cut this out, then you should have two identical knife-halves like shown.

5. Now glue the blade part only on to the white felt sheet. I used a glue stick (for paper), but you can try other types of glue as well. Cut along the blade, be careful at the zig-zag part...

6. Your knife-halves should look like this now.

7. Do exactly the same for the shaft part with black felt, and you should have these now.

8. It's time to assemble them together! Glue the knife-halves together layered like shown. Be careful so that the elastic band is not stretched or folded during the process. Press the knife-halves hard together, then wait until the glue dries.

9. Your knife should look like this now. You're almost done!

10. See the orange cardboard peeping between the two knife-halves? I would suggest you use a white cardboard so the knife blade would look pretty, but then you'd still see some white cardboard between the shaft parts, right? So grab the black felt-tip pen and colour the still peeping cardboard black!

Congratulations, you're done!

Sorry for the dark pictures, I was working in the middle of the night and my room is just not suitable for taking pictures at night. This is my first tutorial ever, so I hope it's easy to understand. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions :)

How about making different kinds of elastic band bookmark for different kinds of book theme?
The sky is your limit!