At an arts and crafts thing the kids are given non-toveled spoons. The kids string beads and whatnot on a metal thread and then wrap the thread about the spoon handle to decorate it permanently.
Is that considered a Jew improving/repairing a utensil such that it doesn't require tevilah now?

I've made such projects, so I'm curious to know what people think.

My son brought home such a project once, he had stuck multicolored pieces of clay on to the handle of the spoon. Since we weren't sure of the tevila status of the spoon it just sits in the cutlery drawer and has never been used.

I was told that if there was no "improvement" to the actual useful part of the item. No coating, covering or changes were done to the bowl of the spoon, so I would assume that it would still need to be toivelled.