UFO Boxes

Three boxes - three gifts ready for the coming year - three round robin blocks put into use!  I love the round robin blocks I have from swaps at Crazy Quilting International Yahoo group .  Each block is a treasure when it comes home from a round robin - a gift of stitching between stitchers from all over the world to each other.  It seems a shame for the blocks to languish away in a pile though, even if it keeps them very handy for sitting and drooling over them!  lol 
These boxes are one way I have come up with to use the blocks in a way that allows each one to shine on its own and to be on display.  I am always on the lookout for suitable boxes on my thrift store hunting expeditions. 
The white one here was an unfinished box that had a woven wood insert in the top portion as well.  On this one my husband was kind enough to cut out the top woven section with an exacto knife and paint the box white for me.  Yes, I can paint but he is much better at masking than I am so I did not end up with white hinges and latch as well this way.  I used the standard method of lacing the block around a piece of mat board cut to size and then glued the mat board into the top of the box.  In this case I used a piece of trim around the join to hide any imperfections in my construction. 
The foremost box shown was a box intended for storing photographs and had a space in the top to place a photo on display.  It is a simple matter to display a block laced around a thin piece of cardboard instead and since the box is already set up to facilitate display, there was no deconstructing of the box necessary.
The box at the back has a nice deep display area - originally it held pieces of nasty plastic dimensional miniature furniture.  The box itself though was a lovely wooden one and just waiting to be used for something nicer.  On this one it was necessary to pop off the piece of wood on the inside of the lid and remove the original display matter.  Once again I laced a favourite round robin block around a piece of mat board cut to the correct size.  Inserting the block into a deep framework like this box had allows for using a more dimensional piece of stitching - lots of room for buttons, silk ribbon embroidery, etc. without it being crushed or distorted.  The box also had a piece of glass in place to protect the stitching.  I used E6000 to reglue the piece of wood from the inside of the lid back into place and it all looks like this was the original intention for the box!
I hope you enjoyed the explanation of how I used these round robin blocks and that you will be inspired to search out suitable boxes like this to display pieces of stitching you have.  If you are looking for more ideas, check out the linky party at Pigtales and Quilts for more ideas on finishing up your quilting UFOs!