Uncommon Uses for Common Materials

A plastic-wrap wall formed the front of the bar area, with only a narrow, horizontal strip of space through which the bartenders could communicate and pass drinks.

To give the cocktail area a focal point and conversation piece, event designer David Stark outlined the museum's historic home using fluorescent tape provided by 3M.

Artist Jennifer Rubell created a cell padded with edible cotton candy.

In place of a typical step-and-repeat, the producers created a walls of gold-painted apples for guests to pose beside. The color, which matched the decorations of the bottle, also complemented the warm gold lighting used at the event.

More than 200 weather balloons held up paper strips painted with images of city buildings at the Bailey House fund-raiser, providing an affordable and interesting way to decorate the 69th Regiment Armory.

For the fourth annual Sweetlife festival, hosted by Washington eatery Sweetgreen at Merriweather Post Pavilion, the V.I.P. area’s DJ booth was outfitted with hundreds of bright orange traffic cones.

Guests arriving at Cipriani 42nd Street

With a limited budget, Bruce sourced decals from a number of places to install representations of Pop Art-style graphics on the walls and columns of the lobby. The process lengthened production as the team applied and centered decals individually.

The dining room's entryway featured a National Design Awards insignia made of packing crates and an archway of seat cushions.

Highboy tables, made of barrels enclosed in Plexiglass, stood near the bar.

In the lounge area, a dropped ceiling of silk strips and black glass chandeliers formed the main visuals.

At the Spamalot opening night party at Roseland, Tobak-Dantchik used Spam cans as bricks to construct a massive castle.

Umbrellas made from brightly colored tablecloths and twisted stacks of seat cushions hung from the ceiling.

Trash-turned-art hung overhead in an indoor-outdoor seating area.

Ball-Nogues designed a canopy made of colorful T-shirts from United Textile.

"The chair was the one that eluded us for the longest," said designer David Stark of the structure that required 2,000 bottles of water to be individually clipped into place.

XA, the Experiential Agency, used long grosgrain ribbons to simply and effectively divide a large space at a 2006 Tag Heuer event.

Vintage T-shirts covered high tables.

Domino's fund-raising auction and anniversary celebration gave the Ukrainian Institute a contemporary look using plain white paper, including topiaries from Leah Singer that flanked the mansion's entrance.

A "globe of garbage" illustrated how much waste consumers can save by using a SodaStream machine.