You could batik it.

LACE!

YEah, it might be way too trendy, but it's really cool to do a "negative" of a nice big chunk of lace. Either get paper-lace doilies (Sp?) (the kind of stuff you put under plates at parties), or get a bigger chunk of lace trim from the nearest home decorating shop and use it as a stencil, or heck laquer it on!

Just to show you the kind of crazy I mean, I'm going to sneak in to babies bedroom and snap a shot of her ex-boring cabinet. Hang on.

Comic book chest of drawers...I want to do this.

I can't wait to see your photo, dabitch. Tip toe in there...

Here we go, rubbish shot I'm afraid but that type of lace is very inexpensive an you could use it as a stencil. (Come in very wide, super-duper-wide and thin like here)

Cartoon drawers are fun too! Make a big stencils of the best Modesty Blaise squares you can find! Yeay!

Be careful with spray painting if your particleboard is surfaced with melamine: it won't stick.

If you do spraypaint or decoupage, consider roughing up the surface first --- just a bit! --- with sanding blocks or sandpaper. Paint or mod-podge should stick better to a rough surface than to a slick one.

As you may be aware, mod-podge and its ilk are sticky in humid weather; you'll probably want to treat the finish with a coating, maybe of polyurethane.

Or perhaps you're using a nicer decoupage glue than I do. My stuff always gets slightly tacky on humid days.

Contact adhesive paper will stick nicely and saves the hassle of painting. Solid is good to try first, but it's easy to remove it you don't like it/get tired of it - which is a big bonus.

Find some solid graphic images/outlines/blobs you like, enlarge them to huge size and cut out of contact paper, then adhere. Let them run from one part to the other, such as, if you have something with cabinet doors/drawers, have it go over several. You can layer differnt colors/images for additional complexity.

There are many fine ideas on Ikea Hacker.

Craftster, linked above with the comic book dresser, will have TONS of clever DIY ideas.

dabitch beat me to it - I was going to say stencil, baby.