Chalcedony and Jasper Beaded Wrap Bracelet from Thailand

If you like to live on the bright side, dress up your colorful patterned plates with matte-finish flatware and a charming bow topper: Cinch a napkin in the middle using a playful elastic adorned with wooden beads. Add a circle name tag for each guest to round out the look.

Colorful beaded bracelets have signaled summer for as long as the coolest counselors at camp have been stacking them up their wrists.

This handy tool makes gift-wrapping a breeze: load it up with paint, and roll it onto plain white kraft paper to make festive holiday designs. 

Designed to cushion basically anything and everything in transit, hardworking corrugated cardboard has an artistic side: Its fluted rows keep colored raffia in line brilliantly.

Glossy magazines have something e-readers never will: crisp, saturated pages you can repurpose in this genius way. Flip through old issues and snip parts of images containing colors and patterns you like. Then, turn your clippings into these bead-like toppers.

Tell recipients of these gorgeously textured accessories that you relied on kumihimo (translation: gathered threads), the ancient Japanese braiding technique, to create them.

Nothing says 2gether 4ever like a friendship bracelet, and this technique is so speedy, you can weave one for every member of your inner circle.

Use caning — an intricate material derived from the outer bark of the rattan palm — for an easy tabletop project. With the lightweight material, they can be made in all shapes and sizes.

When you crisscross crepe-paper party decorations on plain packages, you get a kicky plaid motif that'll delight any recipient. But rest assured: If you can fold streamers, cut shapes along the edges, and layer them with skinnier strips, you can pull off one of these graphic glories.

To mimic icy branches, we used acrylic tubing and wintry blue beads.