Using GUISkin with Hierachy Objects

I've delved into the documentation and rifled through the internet to no avail. Is there a way to apply a GUISkin to a hierarchy object (such as text or buttons) without using scripts?

I tried attaching the skin to the main camera, I tried calling it in another script as suggested in this link and I tried making it a completely new object in the scene, but I didn't know where to go from there and it didn't work.

All of my text and other similar items were created in the hierarchy, not in a script. Is there any way for me to apply a skin to them, universally (e.g. so that one button press can change colours for the entire project), or do I have to create them in a script? If there isn't a way of doing this, can it be done with GUIStyle?

Any help or useful links would be very much appreciated.