Christmas Soap Carving Ornaments - DIY

Cute Christmas soap ornamnets

Soap carving for Christmas

I got this idea of Christmas soap carving ornaments after reading Soap Carving books of Miho Morita.
Mrs.Miho Morita (http://fruitscarving.wordpress.com) is a famous carving teacher and tutorial book writer in Japan. We have met at Carving Contest Event held in Tokyo in 2011. I took a lesson from Miho-sensei and it was a great impulse for me.

Miho Morita's style is elegant and looks like a lacework carved in melons. She also does cute carvings in soap like soap cakes, flowers and jewelry.
In 2012 Miho-san published a new book on soap carving. I was lucky to get all the books, the first (2009) and the second (2012).

Soap Carving Tutorials by Miho Morita

These books are high quality printed with bright and beautiful photographs of the soap carvings in the beginning and photo tutorials afterward. It is written in Japanese, but understandible pictures make it easy.

What I like about the books is that tutorials have brief schemes showing possible mistakes, so you can awoid them. This made me feeling my teacher is always close by me to help :)

The books gave me a new vision for soap carving art. They are inviting to soap carving and crafting, I am sure they will be interesting for people with basic and advanced carving skills.

You can order the books in Amazon Japan. They have English page and provide international shipping.
Soap Carving, Blue 2009
Soap Carving, Pink 2012

Soap carving books by Miho Morita,  blue (2009) and pink (2012)

Inside the book

Inside the book,
photographs of cute carvings and How-To photo tutorials afterward

Christmas Soap Carving Ornaments

click photo for a bigger size

Though Miho Morita teaches to use a thai knife only with a little help of cutters, I used my Triangle tools for making the soap ornaments. So you will enjoy the soap carving in any case with having tools or not.

Palmolive and Nivea soap bars are good for soap carving

Instruction:
I used Nivea ans Palmolive soaps for the crafts.

Glue soap details with water. Foam a soap surface using a wet cotton bud, attach the details and let them fix.

Santa Boot

1. Slice a red soap bar.

2-3. Cut it in a shape of a boot using a thai knife.

4. Slice a white soap bar.

5. Give it a 'cloud' shape.

6. Make a hole in the boot with a toothpick, insert a thread. After that glue the white details in both sides of the boot.

Christmas Flower

1. Use a red soap slice. Make a hole in the center with a smal U-knife.

2. Make a same hole in the white soap slice. Insert the white detail in the red.

3-4. Make holes around the central one and replace them with the white details.

5-6. Use a goffer U-knife for shaping the flower and cut it out.

Christmas soap ornaments in Wonder Tree

Palmolive soap bar for Christmas tree 

Christmas Tree

1. Slice a green soap bar.

2. Use small and big U-knives and thai knife for the craft.

3. Cut the soap to point to make a tree top.

4-10. Use smal and big U-knives for modeling the tree.

How to carve Christmas tree in soap

how to make Christmas tree in soap

Soap is a nice material to play with. I am sure you will enjoy it :)