Treating friends to dinner thanks to Serve

This post is sponsored by Serve from American Express. Sign up for Serve and receive $10 credit towards your first use. Comment below within the next 7 days for your chance to win an extra $100 credit to your account!

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I can't believe it's only 5 days until Christmas. I say this every December but this month has just flown by and I've been trying to do little things here and there to celebrate the season and have some fun. A few weekends ago I had the chance to go shopping with a few of my good friends and then take them out to dinner afterwards thanks to American Express Serve. We braved the mall and I exchanged some shoes and then bought a few gifts and then we went over to one of my favorite restaurants in Salt Lake City, Red Rock Brewing Company.

Serve is a new service from American Express that's a digital payment system - a way to settle up with friends/buddies instantly via email or mobile device. It's super easy to use, both online and on their mobile app. It literally took me just a few minutes to sign up for Serve on their website & hook it up to my bank account.

But back to dinner first. Serve had generously given me some fun money to treat my friends to a great dinner and so we kind of went nuts. After a round of drinks & the biggest appetizer sampler thingy on the menu, all of us ordered the biggest, juciest, steak and potato meal on the menu while just one chose a more sensible cheeseburger. Just kidding - I just REALLY like the cheeseburger at Red Rock! And I was a little jealous when I saw the delicious looking steaks come out.



Dinner with just my girlfriends is something that doesn't happen near often enough and we really took advantage of the kid-free time that night. We talked and talked and talked and then finally thought we should order our food, and then talked and talked some more. We stuffed ourselves silly and then someone thought that it would be a good idea to order cheesecake, too. So yummy.

Splitting the bill is usually the part of the evening that I don't look forward to, I do a little groan in my mind thinking of the hassle and calculations and math that's going to be involved to figure out exactly what everyone owes on the check and who has cash and who doesn't and who owes whom what. Nothing like spoiling a great night of girl talk with math and money discussions. With Serve, it was so easy I barely had to think about it.



We had the waitress just split the bill evenly between us all, everyone paid with their own credit/debit/cash whatever, and then I asked my friends what their Serve account email addresses were, and I just zapped them the money I owed them to pay them back. It was SO easy. We got a little excited at how quick the money showed up in their accounts and debited out of mine. Now that their money was in their Serve accounts, they could use it through their Serve debit card, or transfer the money to their linked bank accounts.



Serve is available as an app for both iPhone and Androids (we had some of each represented at our table!) and is so user-friendly. I'm a sucker for well-designed and pretty looking apps, and Serve's app definitely is both of those things. It even has a "split the bill" section that lets you input the # of people in your party, your bill amount and what you want to tip and it figures out exactly what you owe - AND it lets you input their Serve emails right then and there so you can request money from them. It's such a good idea for a service.



I was really excited to get to try out Serve and I completely recommend it. I love that it's by American Express because I know they stand by their products and have great customer service. If you're looking to try out a new digital payment system, I definitely think you should learn more about Serve and then sign up. If you do sign up, leave a comment on this post saying you did and you'll be entered to win A HUNDRED BUCKS from Serve. Isn't that awesome?

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Remember to sign up for Serve and receive $10 credit towards your first use. Comment below within the next 7 days for your chance to win an extra $100 credit to your account! Official sweepstakes rules and regulations may be found by clicking here. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Do you Tangerine Tango?

I've always been interested in the colors that Pantone chooses for their colors of the year. Remember in late 2009 when they announced the shade for 2010 was the same turquoise that we had just painted Grahm's room? Last week Pantone announced the color of the year for 2012 was Tangerine Tango.



I admit I wasn't super excited because I am not a huge fan of orange. A few people on Twitter were talking about if they did or didn't like orange & I made mention that I'd be interested to see how it would be brought into sewing & quilting, if at all. There's some beautiful tangerine fabric out there but it's just not a color that you see a LOT of in quilting.



Ali saw me wondering out loud how tangerine would be used in the quilting world and she proposed an idea ... so we're excited to announce the Tangerine Tango Quilt Challenge!



Pantone has this to say about Tangerine Tango: “Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”



Ali and I will announce more details after the holidays but in the mean time you can join our Flickr group to start chatting about if you're up for a the challenge or scope out our all-tangerine-all-the-time inspiration board on Pinterest. Who thinks they want to Tangerine Tango with us? I've already started dreaming up possible color schemes!

A caramel apple cake with homemade caramel sauce

Thanks to Duncan Hines for sponsoring my writing. There's no limit to the baking possibilities, so grab your favorite Duncan Hines mix and Comstock or Wilderness fruit fillings and Bake On! www.duncanhines.com.

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I've been baking and cooking and making candy like crazy lately. I always like to bake but something about the holidays just makes me want to do it more & make stuff for neighbor gifts & for people that come over to my house. I'm planning a girls' night in in January for a bunch of my friends from the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild, since a few of us weren't able to make it to our December meeting but still wanted to see each other & hang out. I think a dessert party would be fun, have everyone bring different baked goods & candy & cookies to eat. Like a cookie exchange but with all desserts.



One thing I'll make for sure for our girls' night is this apple caramel cake from Duncan Hines. It's just from a box but instead of using the just-add-water powdered caramel sauce that came with it, I substituted my own homemade caramel sauce and just added it in like the recipe called for. It is to. die. for.



Making homemade caramel is easy as long as you have a good candy thermometer and some uninterrupted time to stand by your stove to monitor the heat and everything. Or even if you have to leave the stove for a minute or five to go rescue your walls from being scribbled on by a crazy marker-wielding two year old I promise it will be ok. Just bring him back and sit him on the counter where he can't get down and give him the spoon to lick, and go back to stirring your caramel sauce & monitoring the heat.



I just ate another slice of the cake heated up a little in the microwave and it's so good! I don't want to share it - and if I make it again for our get-together I might not want to share it either. I can't wait for the girls' night!

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Remember to check out Duncan Hines' website www.duncanhines.com to find some great recipes for your holiday get-together! I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective.

It's Giveaway Day!

Thanks for stopping by my website as a part of Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway Day! One of the best days of the year, right? ;]



Just a quick intro if you've never been here before: I'm Erin, I blog about stuff like my two cute boys, the fun things we do, the pretty photographs I take, the things I sew, the pop culture I like, and the general craziness that is my wonderful life. I'm the founder of Sewing Summit, a conference for the modern sewist and blogger. We have a Giveaway Day prize over there too, if you want to enter! You can learn more about me here.



If you want to keep up with me you can like Two More Seconds on Facebook or follow my incessant ramblings on Twitter.



I'm offering 5 Robert Kaufman Kona charm packs for Giveaway Day this year! Kona is my favorite solid to sew with & this is your chance to win a charm of EVERY shade they offer. You'll win one of each of the 5 charm pack pallets: dusty, classic, pastel, dark & bright.



To enter just leave a comment telling me something happy you saw, experienced or did yesterday! Let's put some happiness out into the universe today & create a thread filled with tons of positivity & cheerfulness.

The giveaway will be open until Friday, December 16th at 6pm MST. Winner will be notified by email so make sure I can get in touch with you - leave your email address in the comment if you don't have it attached to your profile! International entries welcome.

Have a happy day!

Easiest Christmas wrapping ever

My friend Amy put together a Christmas swap on Twitter a few weeks ago as a quick and easy way for some of us in the online sewing community to exchange some little thoughtful gifts with each other. I had a good time scoping out my partner & figuring out a few things I could buy for her - it was hard to stay under the $15 spending limit!




I'll show what I got for her once she's received her package - don't want to spoil the surprise! Instead I can show how I wrapped up these little things - my favorite way to wrap things - with regular brown Kraft paper & my sewing machine! I've been wrapping like this for years, it's especially helpful when you're running out the door to a party last minute & don't have any appropriate wrapping paper.




Now I don't even buy regular wrapping paper, just a big roll of the brown stuff every once in awhile. In a pinch you can even use a paper grocery bag. Who cares about the writing on the inside?




It's super easy to do - I first cut a rectangle out of the paper that when folded in half will make a little bag that's big enough to hold the gift. Sew up the 2 sides of the paper to make a bag, stuff the present inside, then sew a bunch of criss-crossing lines to seal it up. In this instance I had red thread on top & green in the bobbin, and flipped the present over for a few lines to get some green showing on the top too. So easy.




Easy, economical & it looks pretty cute, too. My favorite way to wrap presents! I can't wait to get my package from my secret partner!

Also our elf, Reginald, has returned for the season. We had him last year & Mason loved it, so of course he had to come back this year. Now Grahm gets all excited & wakes up in the morning running off to see where Reggie has landed for the day. This morning he was feeling a little snacky & was hiding in the box of donuts.