Let’s Carve a Simple Santa Ornament that is easy for the beginning wood carver.
Start with a 1″ x 1″ x 5″ piece of basswood. The layout is very simple and can be used as a basis as well as other variations of Santa wood carvings.
Layout your Design
First pick a corner to represent the front as well as the face side of your Santa. Measure down from that side and put a mark at 1″. Next mark 1 1/2″ and 2″ put a mark. Here is a pattern you can download that shows all the measurements. Simple Santa Ornament pattern.
Now move to the left corner of the face and put your first mark at 1 1/2″ and another mark at 2″.
Next move to the right corner of the face and put your first mark at 1 1/2″ and another mark at 2″. Basically, repeat what you did on the left side. Moving to the very back corner put your first mark at 2″ and second mark at 2 1/2″.
Now with a ruler or straight edge connect the top marks all the way around. Connect the second marks all the way around. Now you should have a border all the way around your block. This will be the white trim around the santa hat.
Moving back to the front face corner let’s put a mark for the nose. The nose is 2″ from the top. Place a mark for the bottom of the beard which is 3 1/8″ from the top. Draw a curved line from the left and right corners of the hat trim to the 3 1/8″ mark for the beard.
For a video on Let’s Carve a Simple Santa Ornament visit our youtube channel here.
Mark all your hat trim lines with stop cuts and rough in the trim for the upper part of the santa hat. Round out the hat and cut a v- notch for the ball on the hat. Now you can stop cut each side of the nose and shape it in.
Next round out the bottom of the body. Let’s pencil in a cape on the back of the Santa. Now you can shape in the beard and moustache. Next shape in the cheeks and place triangle cuts in the corners of the cheeks. Finish rounding out the face and nose.
Cut in a triangle cut at the base of the nose for the mouth. Finish out the Simple Santa with texturing the beard, moustache hat trim and ball on top of the hat. Now your ready to paint.
I used snow white color for the moustache, beard as well as the hat trim and fuzzy ball. For the face I used a caramel mocha color. Finish with a Bright Red for the hat and body. Now you add a screw in eyelet with a ornament hook. If you don’t have hooks use a shaped paper clip.
I hope I can encourage you to pick up a knife and a block of wood and Carve something Today.
Happy Carving!
Carverguy