Back in Matt's college days, he had a fondness for beer (go figure). A favorite hangout of his was the Chimes, which is known for its extensive beer menu. A popular thing to do is to go 'round the world'. I'm not sure if it's the same now as it was back then, but I see on the website that means 60 beers from 20 countries. From what I remember, you had to sign up for it, you got a card that was kept on file and on that card you could check off what you drank. Once you met all the requirements - the 60 beers from 20 countries - you got a t-shirt and your name on a plaque that hangs in bar. Oh, you also had to do this within a certain time limit, 6 months maybe?
Well, my dear husband did this. Twice. I tried once, but I couldn't do it. For one, those imported beers are expensive, which is tough to do on a student budget. And sometimes they're yucky. Anyway, on one of his trips 'round the world' he decided to peel the labels off the bottles and save them. All this happened before my time, so I don't know all the details. He collected them by sticking them to a big sheet of paper all willy-nilly in a poster frame (I think it is the sheet that comes in the frame that has all the dimensions). It was quite classy, let me tell you. I'm sure it was the prize of his bachelor pad.
I love personal mementos, so I never made him get rid of it. It never hung on our wall, but it stayed out of the trash. One day I got the idea that it would be pretty cool to frame those labels. When I pulled the sheet out of the frame I thought there was no way that I could salvage them. I thought about slicing up the sheet with the labels attached, but I wasn't too keen on that idea (willy-nilly, remember?).
With some time and a lot of patience, I was able to remove most of the labels from that sheet of paper. I then trimmed some of the labels, removed bar codes, and arranged them neatly. I filled up two frames and have still have labels left over. For being a bunch of old beer labels, I think it turned out pretty nice...nice enough to hang on the wall of our house. Needless to say, Matt was very pleased.
