DIY Curling Iron to Curling Wand

I recently discovered how wonderful a curling wand is! You might be wondering....what's the difference between a curling iron and a curling wand? A curling wand is a curling iron without the clamp/clip. So, in order to use the curling wand, you wrap your hair around the barrel with your fingers because there isn't a clamp to hold the hair onto the iron.
I've found that you can do many different types of curls and that I can curl my hair faster than I would normally with a curling iron.

After playing with the idea, I decided to make my own curling wand from an old curling iron. I used a curling iron I've had for a long time but hadn't been using a lot lately. I had thought about buying a curling wand, but once saw how you can change a curling iron into a wand somewhere. I decided I'd try it out and see if it would work. This is really easy and took me about 5 minutes. All you'll need is a curling iron and a small screwdriver.

Start with an ordinary curling iron -- mine is a 1" con air curling iron.

Step 1. Pop off the stand for the curling iron.

Step 2. Take your screwdriver and push out the pins that are holding the clamp/clip for the curling iron.

Step 3. Unscrew the spring from the iron.

And viola! You've got yourself a curling wand!

It's that easy.

So what do ya think? Which do you like better, a curling wand or a curling iron?

Memorial Day Weekend

I hope y'all had a fantastic Memorial Day! Charlie and I had a pretty low key weekend and tried not to do much. Turns out....it was hot this weekend. And if you weren't out on the lake or by the beach it wasn't a lot of fun to be outside.

For Memorial Day, Charlie and I picked up my Grandmother went over to my Mom and Dad's house. We grilled out and and enjoyed some yummy foods.

The spread.

If you notice in the trifle bowl I made my yummy cucumber cornbread panzanella salad again. :)

I also made some red, white, and blue oreos. These are super easy to make and can easily be made for any holiday. Just change the sprinkles. (For example, I made these for St. Patrick's Day and used green sprinkles.) All you need is oreos, white chocolate, and your desired sprinkles. Heat the chocolate and start dippin.

Place them on some wax paper and I always pop them into the freezer for a minute to let the chocolate harden. It's that simple!

I hope y'all had a great Memorial Day weekend too!

Vera Bradley Backgrounds

I stumbled across these Vera Bradley backgrounds the other day (I think because of Pinterest -- gotta love Pinterest!) and found a gold mine of great pictures! So, I thought I'd share them with all of you. Vera Bradley has supplied these pictures to use as backgrounds for you computer, ipad, and iphone. They are all free downloads and there are several to choose from. You can find the whole selection here.

Right now this is my current background on my computer:

Pretty, don't you think?

Enjoy picking out your own background! :)

Strawberry Brownie Cupcakes!

I decided to try out a new recipe this weekend that I found on Pinterest! Strawberry brownie cupcakes -- yummy, right?! For this recipe I used one box of brownies and one box of strawberry cake mix. I fixed each box according to the back of the package and preheated my oven to 350.

Okay, I'm going to get really technical when I explain my process.... :) I took my batter of brownie mix and added a dollop to the bottom of the cupcake liner. Then I took the cupcake batter and added a larger dollop on top. I was able to make 24 cupcake brownies, with that I had more brownie batter left over than cupcake batter. So I decided to pour the rest of the brownie batter in a pan and bake a small batch of brownies. I had enough cupcake batter left over to make two more plain strawberry cupcakes.

Here's what it looks like when I added my dollops of batter to the liners.

After pouring the batter for my strawberry brownie cupcakes I baked them at 350 degrees for 22 minutes. I let them cool completely, and I iced them with vanilla icing. For this batch, I iced them with some store bought icing because I was running short on time.

They look so yummy, right?!

Next time I make them, I'll make my own icing and top them with a fresh strawberry, for a little something extra. 

But they were delicious the way they were!

Have you found a recipe on Pinterest worth sharing??