Here we will talk about putting a skin on your 3D object. I made a very basic vase for this tut. below the "drawing board" so to speak is the "materials" window. this is where you create skins for your objects!
after you click "New Material" you will have this screen pop up
here, you can edit it's color, reflection, transparency (and refraction for glass type materials), "bump" (a picture that will embed itself into the object, like diamond plate, tread for tires, etc.), glow (a light bulb), fog, and other goodies. Try them all out!
to put the material on to your object, simply click and drag it onto the object's name. then it will look like this:
then after your render your item, you will see the very little details for your object! like so: