What do you get when you take a cedar plank that is 8 feet long 3 1/2 inches wide and 1/2 inch thick, cut it into 8 1 foot pieces, glue them together into a stack and then scratch your head wondering why the hell you just did that?
you get 3 end grain boxes like these. (note: there is no finish on these yet they are raw wood at this point)

I seriously had no clue why I glued the pieces together like I did, it was a spontaneous spur of the moment thing.
Each side, including the bottom, is 1 slice off of the block I made. The overall grain pattern of the wood was rather plain and boring, the end grain had much more character to it so I am rather happy with the results.