Book excerpt: Express your love for the playful, the romantic, the elegant, with these imaginative, colorfully photographed projects based on cardboard boxes. Round up a paint roller, tacky glue, craft scissors, cardboard, a utility knife, and some paper bags. Basic techniques for scoring, fabric-covering, laminating, wrapping, and padding, as well as some simple sewing and embroidery instructions, are all fully illustrated. Try your hand at the 21 gorgeous mix-and-match designs, including a bullion rose, a dwarf dahlia, a fluted rim, a gathered leaf, and other ornaments and decorative touches. Then let your imagination loose! Start with "For the One I Love", a heart-shaped box with silk flowers in shades of peach and rose, or "By the Sea" with its pearly curls of ivory ribbon cascading over eyelet lace. House special mementos in "Treasured Keepsakes", a domed box wrapped in a rusty ribbon. Or make a doll's seagoing wardrobe trunk, "A Trip Across the Atlantic". Whether they hold your own treasured baubles or special gifts for your friends, these beautiful fabric-covered boxes send a magic message.