My super-crafty mother-in-law recently made these gorgeous boutique-worthy necklaces from unusual materials: mini cereal boxes (top left), a box containing sweets from Japan (top right), and postcards from the PIT improv theater in New York (bottom).
(The cardboard recycling pile at the town dump is also great place to find colorful materials, as I learned this past weekend.)
Bonney got the idea from a tutorial on Folding Trees.