Octopus Bolo Tie © 2025 by Paige Kelly is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

This little guy was the first bolo tie I ever made and my first experimentation with making my own jewelry. The octopus is made out of model magic, which is very light but incredibly fragile. It is attached to an oyster shell. Many members of my family make art using oyster shells, and I am glad to be a part of that tradition. The mechanism for the bolo tie is quite rudimentary, just two jump rings attached at an angle to create tension in the string. The beads came with my used car keys and at one point had Mandarin characters painted on it. When the string holding the beads broke, I decided to recycle them out of sentimentality.

Octopus Bolo Tie © 2025 by Paige Kelly is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0