“Making a spoon is easy. Start with a piece of wood and remove everything that doesn’t look like a spoon.” — Steve Schuler

1. Shape the inside of the bowl first by using a chisel or hook knife to remove material from the inside of the spoon. As you remove small bits of material inside the spoon face, it will start to form a small divot. Continue hollowing out your spoon by digging down the wall of the spoon towards the centre. Be careful to not dig too deep into the dish of the spoon as you’ll end up with a hole in your spoon!
2. Hold your spoon blank (or place it in a vice) and carve along the handle with small strokes (making sure to carve away from yourself), removing small amounts of shavings. Stay in control of the cut by carving along the top of the wood as opposed to digging in and removing chunks. Take your time as there is no rush and part of the joy of spoon carving, is the process itself!
3. As your spoon starts to take shape, you can start to add some details around how thick you’d like the handle to be, whether the handle tapers to fit your hand, how wide it is, whether the handle is intricate or more practical, and the style of the spoon head that you’re after.
4. Once you are fairly happy with the handle of the spoon, begin removing material along the edges of the spoon blank head, and round out the back of the spoon to create a smooth continuous slope.
5. Once you are happy with the basic shape of your spoon, its time to sand down any tool marks that you don’t want to keep. You can use card scrapers to remove tool marks and make sanding easier. If using sand paper, start with lower grit sandpaper and work up towards a 220-grit paper. Some people love a completely smooth finish, and others prefer spoons which still have small tool marks visible. The aesthetics are yours to decide!
6. Apply a food safe protective finish to the finished spoon, and once dry its ready to be enjoyed!

Note: Soft woods are easier to carve with and are therefore recommended for beginner spoon carvers.