Drawing a check inside a checkbox using only css - css

Question

I'm trying to create a custom checkbox only using css and no images, but I am having a bit of trouble.
I followed a few tutorials online, but I seem to have hit a road block and help would be great.
My css looks like this
input[type='checkbox'] {
-webkit-appearance: none;
background: #dee1e2;
width: 1.3em;
height: 1.3em;
border-radius: 3px;
border: 1px solid #555;
position: relative;
bottom: .3em;
}
input[type='checkbox']:checked {
-webkit-appearance: none;
background: #dee1e2;
width: 1.3em;
height: 1.3em;
border-radius: 5px;
position: relative;
bottom: .3em;
-webkit-transform: rotate(45deg);
}
What keeps happening is when I do the rotate the whole box rotates and I have tried adding a :after to it, but it didn't seem to do anything.

Answer 1

You could use a unicode check, or even an icon font if you want to get really fancy...
input[type='checkbox'] {
-webkit-appearance: none;
background: #dee1e2;
width: 1.3em;
height: 1.3em;
border-radius: 3px;
border: 1px solid #555;
position: relative;
bottom: .3em;
}
/* added content with a unicode check */
input[type='checkbox']:checked:before {
content: "\2713";
left: 0.2em;
position: relative;
}
Demo

Answer 2

As a matter of fact I tried the same thing on my website (http://e-home.mx) but I ended up hiding the input element with css and adding a label to each one which is the one that "emulates" its behavior like this:
HTML
<input type="checkbox" id="c8" name="c8" />
<label for="c8"><span></span>Label here</label>
CSS:
input[type="checkbox"] + label{color:#000;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;}
input[type="checkbox"] + label span{
display:inline-block;
width:19px;
height:19px;
margin:-1px 4px 0 0;
vertical-align:middle;
background:url("http://e-home.mx/html5/img/form_elements_outlined.png") left top no-repeat;
cursor:pointer;
}
input[type="checkbox"] {display:none}
input[type="checkbox"]:checked + label span {
background:url("http://e-home.mx/html5/img/form_elements_outlined.png") -19px top no-repeat;
}
Here is the fiddle:
http://jsfiddle.net/xedret/bTAGU/