Nickelodeon Gameshows (Flashback Friday)

While watching the ABC show What Would You Do I was brought back to the same named shows on Nickelodeon which aired in the 90's and was hosted by none other than Marc Summers.

I looked it up on YouTube and it brought back memories and made me realize how different game shows are these days.  I wonder if we will look back in 20 years with the same nostalgia for Howie Mandel hosted Deal or No Deal as we do for Double Dare.  Without any further delay, I bring you an episode of Nickelodeon's What Would You Do.

Any Shariously good memories of old Nickelodeon game shows to share?  Was anyone on one!?

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Entertainment Thursday)

I'm sitting here watching the Tony's tonight and realized I never blogged about the last two Broadway shows that I saw, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and Roger & Hammerstein's Cinderella. This post is about the former and stayed tuned for next week's "Entertainment Thursday" for the latter.

The play is about three siblings (the first three names of the play title). Vanya (David Hyde Pierce) and Sonia (Kristine Nielsen) still live in the Bucks County, PA house in which they grew up. They never quite left their comfort zone unlike their movie star sister Masha (Sigourny Weaver, although I saw her understudy Linda Marie Larson who was also fabulous) who rarely comes to visit. The play takes place over the course of a few days when Masha comes to visit with her boytoy Spike (Billy Magnussen). Other characters include Cassandra (Shalita Grant), the hilarious psychic housekeeper and the starstruck teenage neighbor Nina (Genevieve Angelson) who ends up being enamored by Vanya.

Over the course of play all the character's quirks, dysfunctions and personalities are hilariously portrayed in the play which is more like a 2-hr comedy show. There is so much quick dialogue and so much to pick up the script is really impressive. At one point Vanya goes on an impressive 5 minute hysterically delivered ranting diatribe that I was out of breath just listening to. The siblings miraculously grow up over the course of the few days and we (the viewer) feels more comfortable that they will live happily ever after than when the play started.

Overall the play is an intelligent and hilarious comedy which I highly recommend. All the actors were top notch. As a side, note, I recently watched the not very good movie That's What She Said in which Kristine Nielsen has a small role, as a prison inmate, to which she brings the same great comedic talent.

Has anyone else seen this show? Any other comedy plays that you Shariously recommend?

P.S - as I finished writing this post, it just won the Tony for Best Play! Congrats!

DIY Invitation Liners (DIY Tuesday)

Lately, during the wedding planning process, I've been learning about invitations and all things related.  Suddenly, I'm spending hours researching details that I've never paid attention to
for more than 30 seconds; such as "the liner."  Upon learning how much it would cost to add a beautiful custom liner that matched our invitations, I hopped onto Etsy to see what it might take to DIY.  One popular item was the "map liner."  Me being in a crafty mood I decided to give it a try.

Map Liner Envelopes

I had a bunch of sample envelopes and old maps (the paper kind, not the ones that talk to you).
Here's how I created this:

1. Trim the envelope so that you can determine the size of the liner.
2. Trace the liner size onto cardboard and cut out the template.
3. Use the template all over the map to make liners.  I thought I would "save" space and use the entire map by alternating upside-down ones, but this resulting in upside-down liners, so I forgot about that.
4. Using a glue stick, insert the liner into the envelope! Voila!

Envelope Map Liner 

Some Tips:
I used the pre-existing folds in the map to line up with where the envelope fold was so that there weren't extra creases.  Turned out, that even when creases were not lined up, if you glue properly you can't even see them.

Also, I love crafting - if you have any Shariously fun, easy and practical crafting ideas let me know!

DIY Chalkboard Wine Glasses (DIY Tuesday)

I've been in a very crafty mood lately, so I've decided to change the rarely used "Deal Day Tuesday" to "DIY Tuesday."

We've all been in the situation, you're sitting around with friends when you glance at the coffee table full of glasses or cups and say "which one was mine?"

I, like probably many of you, saw and repinned the picture on pinterest of wine glasses with chalkboard paint to be used to identify your glass.  My senior year of college, I had bought a can of chalkboard spray paint, thinking my roommates and I could do something cool in our house with it.  We never used it.  The can followed me back home and into 3 apartments, still never used.  I finally had something to use it for!

 

My first test run was just with this one glass. I started using a glass from a set of  my Mom had gotten me at T.J Maxx.  When we moved into our apartment the previous tenant left behind 2 sets! of wine glasses, so if I screwed up, we had plenty more to use.  I took a zip lock bag, sealed it up just a little above the bottom of the stem and sprayed away.  I did two or 3 coats out on the terrace, and waited for it to dry.  It came out perfect!  A few weeks later, I decided to complete a couple more.  The only issue I had was I tried to use 1 ziplock bag for all the glasses, but when I removed the bag to put on a new glass, sometimes there was wet paint that would get on places I didn't want.  I also tried to get more creative by making the area of the paint look like a label, but that didn't work out too well, and it got a little messy.

Now I have a great set of 8 chalkboard wine glasses for when we have friends over!

When I went back to look at the original pins for this idea, I saw that the common method was to dip the glass in chalkboard paint.  I saw there were some problems with this, so I highly recommend the spray paint method.

Has anyone else tried this Shariously great idea?