A shovel is the main tool to use for digging up items, helping plant trees, and making changes in the landscape of your home in Animal Crossing. For more on how to get a shovel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, see the following guide. Tom Nook will provide you with the location where the museum is being set up, and when it is in place, Blathers will provide you with the shovel recipe.
Tom Nook needs some help digging fossils, so he will give you the crafting recipe for the Flimsy Shovel. Speak with him, and he will eventually give you the DIY recipe for this, so you can dig up some fossils. Once Blathers got her tent up, talk to him, but he has some other uses for the Shovel as well. Your first shovel is used for digging up fossils, which will complete a museum’s collection and be sold at a bell.
After that, you will get all of the DIY recipes to improve your Shovel. Once a player unlocked Blather’s returning role as the Museum Director, they will have access to shovel recipes. It is crucial that simple tools like shovels are obtained before exploring ways of changing the islands, after all, players cannot obtain the Island Designer application until they have unlocked Blathers, along with both the museum and shovel.
Your new shovel can be upgraded by purchasing a DIY Pretty Good Tools recipe in the nook shop, which costs 3000 bells. To obtain the Recipe, head over to the Nook Stop kiosk in the Residency Service Center and buy the Pretty-Good Tools Pack for 3,000 nook miles. You can unlock a flimsy shovel by purchasing the Pretty-Good Tools pack at the Nook Stop for 2,000 Nook Miles.
The Standard Shovel in Animal Crossing is available to buy at Nooks Cranny for 500 Bells, or it can be made. The flimsy Shovel can be obtained in two ways, firstly, by purchasing a flimsy shovel from Nooks Cranny once you have unlocked items from in-game stories.
You can make a Shovel from any crafting bench, or you can purchase variations from a cupboard at Nooks Cranny. You can buy it in Nooks Cranny Shops, but they will only sell you the fragile Shovel until you level up the Shops enough to sell the stronger items.
You can either get one from Timmy and, make another using hardwood from the 5x, or choose a standard shovel that is a bit tougher. The Flimsy Shovel is the first shovel players get in Animal Crossing New Horizons, but later on, they will be using a standard shovel that is easy to obtain as well.