Is there a way to use CSS to apply custom borders (e.g. a jpg image) to an HTML element? In other words can I have borders that are more graphically appealing then the standard ones, i.e. solid, double, groove, ridge, inset, outset, etc? What is the best way to do this? Thank you!

Not with css alone. With css you're limited to the standard borders types.

You'd have to get more creative. Maybe use several images as backgrounds on different elements that ultimately gives the impression of being a border around the element. It can be tricky since you can only add one background image to each element. Depending on what you're trying to accomplish you might need to use a couple of standard image tags in combination with a background image or wrap several elements around the the one you want to have show a border.