Matchbooks Galore

Ah matchbooks. If you’ve found yourself married to a collection like Kelly is, oh excuse me, I mean have married someone with a matchbook collection — or spoons, bottles, corks, stones, stamps, etc. — then you are most likely married to a Classic. Most traditional collectors tend to be Classics and Funs and since these are the most common American personality types, the chances are good that you will live with one of them during your lifetime. So here are our best tips to make these collections look good.

The best and easiest way to display a matchbook, or other small object collection — like stones, corks, ticket stubs, etc. — is to display them in a beautiful vase or bowl. This is definitely a good solution for Organics and Smarts who like to see their meaningful collections, but a Classic or Fun might appreciate their collection being given a crystal corral of some kind to give it the prominence they never knew they wanted. If there’s too many to fit into a normal sized vase, perhaps pick through and display the prettiest ones or the ones that go best together — the same colors, same type — and stash the rest in a less visually prominent place like a closet or desk drawer. Just make sure to let your Classic know the collection is safe and sound and that you figured you’d rotate it.

When trying to think of brilliant ways to display a match collection, my first thought was, duh, just put them in a picture frame — but this was because I don’t actually collect matches. Framing the matchbooks would require cutting them and taking the art from the front which wouldn’t work for collectors because then they wouldn’t be matchbooks anymore — and no longer practical. So our first suggestion for displaying your matchbook collection is to use a nice shadow box to display your favorite matches. This would also work with lots of other small objects. Though if you’re collecting stamps, coins or baseball cards, so many containers and books already exist for these collections, so we suggest displaying the objects that you’re particularly proud of or that look really cool. Smarts and Organics are naturally good at knowing which ones will look best on a wall.

I also thought of a zany way to transform a matchbook collection into artwork — and yes we think this might work best for Organics — and this is to turn the matchbooks into a banner. All you need is a string to hang all of your fancy matches from. This would look great hanging over a small focal point in a room such as in a basement bar or a rec room. 

Now for those of us, like me, who don’t fastidiously collect matchbooks, I have still managed — like a true Organic Freedom — to grow a good pile of them from my favorite restaurants and cafes.  I like to keep mine in a small bowl next to my candles so I have easy access for lighting candles and I don’t forget where they are!