Don't be such a square

Now that Kevin is at work, I've been busying myself with decorating projects at home. I've wanted to try something similar to this since I saw it on pinterest.

Idea and photo via The New England Southerner

While at a local art gallery, Kevin mentioned that he loved the look of small square canvases in different colors or prints on a wall, so I pulled this fabric idea out to execute something he would love.

From Michael's, I bought square cardboard boxes.

I bought 5 of them at about $1.50 each.

I wanted to make a 9x9 tile square, but I didn't want to buy 9 boxes to only use the lids and throw the boxes away. Instead, I bought 5 boxes and used a bread knife to cut the bottom of 4 of the boxes to the exact height of the lids.

When deciding on colors and picking out fabric, I remembered a recent project that Kevin helped me with. Our apartment complex has a Trade Table, where residents place items they no longer want, and anyone is free to take something off the table. We found a beautifully almost-broken 4 pane frame, and I laid out my scrapbook paper and had Kevin choose which four pieces of paper to put in the frame. This is how it turned out:

These colors became my inspiration for picking out this fabric:

Fabric is so expensive! But I have leftovers for other projects, so it'll feel free then :)

I cut the fabric into squares that were 2 to 3 inches longer on each side than the square lids so the fabric could wrap around the sides. Then, I pulled the fabric tight so there was no excess fabric or wrinkles, and used an ordinary stapler. Probably not the best tool to use, but I made sure to staple it from the inside, so the staples are essentially invisible on the sides.

First one done!

After repeating this for all 9 lids (or sliced off bottoms of boxes), I decided what arrangement to put them in.

This was a fun puzzle to keep similar colors and patterns away from each other.

I hung them with two pushpins each, and worked hard to measure out the space between each square and get each square perfectly level. But here's the final product!