Making Barbie Bolo Ties 🤠

Howdy, Ken!

Sometimes I have to sweat through creative ideas, wrangling new techniques or processes into submission as I try to figure out how to make them useful. For example, I’m still trying to figure out a practical / not horrible use for those loom potholders (I could just settle on their intended use, but I have like 25. What do I do with them?!) and feel a little stinging warning of their inevitable demise when I see them in a thrift store.

And sometimes, the idea arrives full formed, popping into my head like a Barbie’s head popping off of its neck. Such was the case here; one day I was minding my own business, walking down the street, and my mind said to me: “Barbie bolos.” And I knew it was meant to be.

If you’d like to watch a video of me making the three most recent ones, here you go. If you’d like to read more about the process of getting to this point, read on.

The construction is pretty straightforward, as you can see. Here’s a little more info if you’re interested.

Step One (after bathing the thrifted Barbies): Head removal. This honestly was a lot harder than expected because the heads are anchored with this weirdly shaped plastic swivel that I suppose prevents (or at least slightly delays) kids from ripping the heads off. I keep wondering what I can do with these spine anchors, but they look slightly too medical for cute use. Maybe I’ll find a use one day (or maybe you’ll suggest one to me).

Once I got the heads off, I made as clean a hair part as I could from ear to ear and cut through the thick head meat along the jawline, behind the ear, and across the top to the other side. I eyeballed this and tried to make it as straight as I could, and I tried to keep the face angle in mind—cut too far back on the crown of the head, and the Barbie’s face is tilted down on the bolo.

This is when I learned that the inside of a Barbie’s head is a terrifying net of glue dots holding the strands of hair in place, a little like the Hellraiser mask flipped inside out. What does it look like inside our heads?!

Step Two: Make a clay base.

When I first thought of the project, this was the biggest question mark: what would I mount the heads and bolo attachments on? I walked around Home Depot looking for a random small part or piece of wood that would work, thought about trying to attach the bolo backing to the Barbie’s head directly, wondered if I could use resin somehow, and then I realized, standing in front of my craft closet, that the answer was staring me in the face—old crafting faithful—polymer clay.

I chose Sculpey polymer clay because the colors are amazing and it’s surprisingly sturdy when I bake it right. I used my “Used Like New” pasta roller to speed up the process of warming up the clay, and then got to shaping. This was another eyeballing situation—I made shapes that roughly outlined the shape of the Barbie heads and created a sort of jewel-top sloped sides situation so that I could mount the head in the middle of this shape and the sides would taper down to a flat back. I feel like I did not describe that well.

I then “stamped” the Barbie heads into the clay to create a groove that I could insert them into after baking the clay. I ended up adding a ball of clay to fill in some of the space behind the head, but I’m not sure that was necessary.

I baked those babies up according to the package instructions, let them cool, and proceeded to step three.

Step Three: Superglue the backing, Barbie, and bling.

This part is absolutely the worst. I am a messy eater—I cannot get a handful of popcorn into my mouth without dropping half of it—and I am incapable of using superglue without getting it on my hands. Even when I wear gloves, even when I use tweezers, even when I tell myself this time will be different. I hope you don’t know the weirdly hot feeling of getting a drop on your finger, or the mild fear of wondering if you’ll rip some skin off when you eventually try to peel away the hardened glue from your fingertip. My dread of this sensory experience is what keeps me from cranking these bolos out.

This prelude is to distract from the lack of commentary I have on this step in the process—you glue it all on and hope the rubber gloves you’re wearing won’t rip and get stuck in tiny scraps to the Barbie’s face (they will).

Here is the bolo hardware I used. I am quite annoyed with the shape of them but can’t say why. They look like pencil sharpeners or cow faces in a distinctly un-cute way. But they can be glued down and work very well, so I can keep my vibe-based judgments to myself.

I used rhinestones from my big messy bag of jewels and gems that I imagine all crafters have and placed a little accent heart-shaped one right under the chin. Is it a jeweled old-timey neck ruff for Barbie? A glammed-up taxidermy mount? Yes.

Step Four: Dye the strings and glue on the caps.

I found the bolo string at Joann Fabrics, may she rest in peace. It’s a thick woven cotton cord that takes dye very well. If I were being a little more classy, I would go with a leather cord, but I think the chunkiness of the string goes well with the chunky mount.

I used RIT Dye More dye and the colors came out nice and bright. I cut the rope to 32” and glued some jewelry cone beads that I also bought at Joann’s :_( onto the ends after threading the rope through the bolo hardware. I would like to find some official bolo end caps, though, because I don’t love that these beads have holes in the tips.

And….that’s all!

I wore this during Spirit Week when I worked at a middle school, and it freaked the kids out a bit. One group of girls called me “Barbie Killer” for about two months.

If you hear that and say, “Yeah, that sounds like my vibe,” here’s where you can find my current offerings. Given all of my beef with superglue, I don’t love making them but will do it every once in a while. Or you can make your own and send me pics!

Olive keeps tapping my hands with her paws because she wants me to pet her, so I’m going to sign off. Thank you for joining me on this crafting journey.

JESS