Fabric covered storage boxes for Expedit (IKEA)

My treadmill is in the basement family room. Not that I do it religiously, but when I am down there running, my focus becomes the mess that has accumulated in my Expedit bookcases from IKEA. I have a love/hate relationship with these bookcases. I love, love, love these shelves because they are so versatile and can hold so much...and I hate these Expedits because they can look messy while holding everything.

 So a few weeks ago, I started shopping around for containers. The only containers I found were the red ones pictured here:

 

But at $9.99 a piece (with a 50% off coupon), I really couldn't afford buy 16 of these babies.  Also, I wasn't completely in love with their height.  I really was looking for something to take up each individual square space.

 

So, when I was creating my headband organizers, I noticed that the material was a perfect match for my basement family room:

 

Seriously, I don't think I could find a better match if I wanted too (the fabric is more red than orange the way the photo appears).

 

Having this material in hand reminded me of some tutorials I've seen on Pinterest.  Like this one...this one...oh, and this one.

 

I wanted 12 boxes.  The amount of fabric I had leftover was enough to cover about 8 boxes, the front only.  Office Max had the boxes on sale but one get one 50% off.  $18 later, a warmed up glue gun and a container of modge podge, I was ready to go...

 

First off, these boxes are super simple to put together.  I had all 8 boxes together in about 15 minutes.

 

 

The first thing I noticed was the way the handles had a tendency to be kind of loose: 

 

 

 

So I hot glued those so that they would lay flat:  

 

 

I spread the fabric out on my kitchen table, and set about cutting a rectangular piece of material that would fit on the end of the box and hang over the side about 1/2" - 1". Using a 2" paintbrush, I spread Mod Podge over the surface, centered my fabric over top, and firmly pressed it down, streching and smoothing it.  I used my glue gun to adhere the edges of the fabric securely to the cardboard.  Then using my scissors, I cut through the existing handle hole so that I could wrap my fabric through it:

 

One finished box with Mod Podge still drying:

  

And the Final Reveal:

 

BEFORE



AFTER



BEFORE

 

AFTER

Overall, I'm really pleased with how they turned out.  One of my next projects will be to take care of those pictures that are in the "After" photo of bookcase #1.  I'm happy about leaving the empty top middle shelves, but not with how cluttered those pictures look in there.  I think I'd like to put all those pictures in matching frames and putting them on a shelf.  Maybe a shelf behind the couch/under the mirror?

What do you think? How have you solved your unmatching picture frame situations?

I hope that helps or inspires you to sole your Expedit or other storage dilemna!! 
As for me, I'm going to go hit the treadmill :)