Ultimate Soap Carving

I enjoyed learning about soap carving. The book is clear and concise and the photos help you make sure each step is correct. I will be practising my carving soap I can get to the point where I can give these as gift. I never thought about soap carving before and the author makes it seem fun and rewarding.

The cover is absolutely adorable with a charming cat, an amazing unicorn and a sweet turtle. It is sure to pull in craft people, especially those new to soap carving, such as clay crafters like myself. The aspect of soap carving that attracts me is the low expenditure. Usually, with a new craft, one has to outlay some money to get all the necessary tools and materials. With soap carving, there are very few required supplies plus soap you can even buy at the dollar stores.

After a brief introduction to the history and benefits of soap carving, the book is divided into three sections — Materials and Tools, Essential Techniques and Carving Projects (Easy, Intermediate and Advanced). I love that Sone presents these 8 Carving Lessons in order to learn and practice before jumping into the projects. These exercises teach techniques that will later be needed for specific projects, including circular scalloped patterns, delicate waves and triangular patterns. Sone also includes information about coloring and embellishing your carved soap.

Then there are 25 projects, divided into Easy (10), Intermediate (10) and Advanced (5). Since I’m new to soap carving, so I appreciate that between the lessons and the easy projects, there are a total of 18 that I will feel comfortable trying. Some of the Easy projects are a cactus, dachshund, cat, and sheep. In the Intermediate section, there is an umbrella, high-top sneakers, an orchid, etc. Finally, the Advanced projects include a unicorn, a mermaid and a gardenia, among others.

Ultimate Soap Carving is a fun and colorful book with an inviting and friendly layout. Sone goes step by step with text and both clear and large photos illustrating what to do. I can’t wait to get a carving knife and begin this fun craft. There’s always soap around the house that can be shaped into something beautiful.

Thank you to Quarto Publishing Group - Quarry Books and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

Inside, you'll find:Essential Supplies: Discover which knives and soaps work best for carving.Key Techniques: Learn how to prepare soap for carving, hold a knife correctly, and make grooves, incisions, triangles, waves, and other basic cuts through eleven designs in eight step-by-step lessons. You’ll also find easy recipes for making soap and other products using shavings and cuttings.Thirty Step-by-Step Projects: Find instructions and templates for carving super-cute animals, exquisite flowers, fun fashions, sweet accessories, and more.Packed with guidance and inspiration, Ultimate Soap Carving will teach you everything you need to carve your own stunning soap designs.

This is such a fun book! I love how you can turn ordinary bars of soap into such beautiful artwork. There are different levels of difficulty and easy step by step instructions. There are so many styles that I can't wait to try!

Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC of #UltimateSoapCarving
Pub Date: 26 Mar 2019

Ultimate Soap Craving
by Makiko Sone

What a fun craft book, this turned out to be. With a few simple tools and by following the instructions that’s provided, along with the templates from the back of the book your ready to go that fast. You can turn that bar of soap you have into a decorative soap to display in your bathroom. The hardest part is keeping your hand steady. It may take a couple trial runs before you actually have profected this skill.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#Netgalley

I have never tried soap carving. This books gives easy instructions that a beginner will find very helpful. There are many projects that I am anxious to start. The pictures help bring the projects to life. Ultimate Soap Carving is a nice addition to any library.

Very interesting to read about and very knowledgeable on the subject. You could really learn a lot from this book

Very good book to teach someone how to carve soap, has great examples and steps are clear and easy to follow, the temples would be very helpful as well.

Ultimate Soap Carving by Makiko Sone is a tutorial guide with 25 projects showing how to carve soap into various decorative shapes. Released 26th March 2019 by Quarto on their Quarry imprint, it's 128 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.

As shown on the cover, there are numerous fun small soaps with a surprising amount of detail. The author shows step by step how to proportion and carve all of the different shapes. The first 15% of the page content is given to a thorough introduction of tools and materials including specific appropriate carving tools along with a short safety sub-chapter and extra advice on carving with youngsters.

The second chapter (25% of the content) covers template placement, carving techniques, and some carving lessons which cover the techniques necessary for the project tutorials which come in chapter 3.

The tutorials are arranged roughly in order of difficulty in three sections: easy, intermediate, and advanced. I was surprised how intricate and beautiful the projects are. All of the tutorials are well and clearly photographed.

The end of the book includes all the templates for the projects (as well as a link to printable pdf patterns), along with a short index and author bio.

There just aren't that many carving books out there, and this one is quite good for beginners as well as intermediate learners. The author makes a very good point in the book that the skills learnt by carving soap can also be applied to carving fruits and vegetables decoratively as well as learning to carve harder materials.

Four stars. Well worth a look for the crafty reader.

Ultimate Soap Carving
Easy, Oddly Satisfying Techniques for Creating Beautiful Designs--40+ Step-by-Step Tutorials by Makiko Sone is a book I requested from NetGalley and the review is voluntary.
This book is amazing! I loved just looking at the lovely art work! This book has everything from little cute animals, detailed dresses with pearls, unicorns and other fun stuff, gorgeous flowers that look real, to things like picture frames with delicate designs. So many projects and all with step-by-step instructions and lots of photos.
When I was looking at the book I thought I would never be able to do something like this! After reading the instructions, watching the close up pictures, I could understand easily what they were telling me! I think I probably could do some with practice!
Not only does this give you the projects, it shows and tells you so much more about soap carving. It explains what tools you need, what they are used for, how to paint on soap, melting, shaping, blending, adding adornments, and more. There is so much packed in here!
Yes, the patterns for the projects are in here too!
I adored the simple and easy approach to learning a skill that looks so intimidating. Thanks!

A great collection of soap carving projects with varying level of difficulty clearly labeled and templates for specific design. This will be a fun book for anyone trying to make creative gifts, or for selling. Initially picked it up thinking it would be a nice project to do with his, but I think the level of difficulty is more for experienced crafters. That said, the projects in this book could probably be simplified as well.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is very cool! I was interested in it because I had recently started making my own handmade soaps for sale. There’s quite a saturated market out there, so I thought that carving would elevate my soaps to the next level. It definitely has! The only downfall is that most say that my soap is too pretty to use. No complaints here! Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC, I really enjoyed it! I appreciate craft books, but this one in particular!

I discovered this easy and inexpensive art thanks to this amazing book from Quarto Publishing Group. This can be used to inspire families for a weekend activity or in the classroom.

#UltimateSoapCarving #NetGalley

Delightful soap carving book with good instructions and plenty of projects to get your knife into. No fancy soap is required, can use one you by from the supermarket.

Comes with lots of colour photography and templates to use.

The end products would make great presents or could be made for school fairs.

I received this book from netgalley in return for a honest review.

I am always craze for soap craving..... I never tried my hands in this craving. This book teaches a lot of techniques and gives me confidence to try my hand......

This was a fun and easy to read book with a variety of projects to choose from. The layout was pleasing and the instructions were clear.

Was man nicht alles aus Seife machen kann! Mit genauen Anleitungen lernt man diverse Muster zu schnitzen und so kleine Kunstwerke zu erschaffen - zum aufpimpen des eigenen Badezimmers und als unerschöpfliche Quelle für das etwas andere Mitbringsel!