Everyone needs a tissue from time to time, especially with winter weather coming on! So why not dress up the standard-issue boring cardboard tissue box to enhance the decor of the room you’ve worked so hard to put together?

Forget about Grandma’s plastic-canvas creations (unless, of course, that’s your chosen style) because there’s no end of ways to style this simple accessory.

From smooth-crafted natural wood to the sleek German sheath in stainless steel to this over-the-top Thai style in hot pink seed beads, a tissue box cover can dance to whatever tune the imaginative home decorator wants to play!

I’m really taken with the wit behind this resin Easter Island monolith cover, with its stoic stone-like face sprouting a tissue beneath its nose like a comic moustache!

If you can’t find what you want, nothing’s easier than making your own tissue box cover. After all, it’s nothing more than a box with one side completely open, and a hole for the Kleenex to get pulled out the other side.

Construct the cover with fabric-covered cardboard, decoupage images on a thin plywood box, quilt it up with Victorian patchwork in satin and velvet, or do it in stained glass, fake fur, broken-plate china mosaic, even birch bark — whatever your own particular skill.

Papier-mache construction is simple and straightforward for a project like this — as long as you’re careful that the paper strips don’t get too soggy with glue, or the large flat sides of the tissue cover box can warp out of shape as they dry. Still, paper mache is quick and cheap and fun, and the kids can help — why not paint the finished box in a bright true white and have a young artist decorate it with tiny handprints in bold primary colors.

There, a gift idea for Granny!

If you’re really gifted with a sewing needle, what about a soft sculpture Winnie the Pooh for the nursery?

But paint is the quickest and easiest way for most of us to get a custom look — I often buy a cheap plain wooden tissue box cover at the local home-improvement depot (look in the aisle where they stock the tole painting supplies) and do either decoupage or a faux finish like a fantasy “marble” that picks up on the room’s main colors.

A nice finishing touch is to overpaint with a key motif borrowed from the upholstery, window treatments, or other printed fabric that’s part of the decor.

Stencilling works well for this, and it’s do-able even if you fear that you’re among the artistically challenged — just place a blank piece of stencil plastic over the fabric and trace out the shape that you want, then cut out your own custom stencil with fine-bladed craft knife or razor blade.

One of these days I’d like to experiment with a gold leaf on lacquer finish for a tissue box cover and other accessories — perfect in an Asian theme room — but that will have to wait until several dozen other projects are out of the way!