using textures as objects

Is there a way to use a cutout texture as an object without having it look strange?

I tried using a texture of a flower with an invisible background behind it as an object, by making a square and flattening it as much as i could, then adding the flower texture to it.

It looks ok, but it still looks a little weird and you can still see the tiny sides of the box, since it won't let me flatten it enough.

Does anyone know how to fix this ?

It will likely always look flat - one idea is to create other prims centered exactly on your current prim and roate them a bit -making a fan sort of effect. That way you'll see the flower 'front on' from several angles, and it can add to the illusion that it's real.

As for the textures on the edges, that's easy to fix. You simply need to apply a clear texture to them, instead of the same flower on the front of the box. I've always found it's easier (for me) to apply the clear texture to the entire prim first via the texture tab in the edit window, and THEN apply the texture i'll actually be using to the front and back of the prim by dragging it from my inventory and dropping onto said faces of the prim. (dragging and dropping is also very helpful when you've got a bajillion textures and your drop down list in your texture window is about three miles long. *grin*)