Happy (almost) {inter}national Scrapbooking Day!!

Only a few hours till it’s officially {i}NSD, but the fun already started here and there... Like @ Mscraps... The fun began this morning and the 30% off storewide sale has kicked off. Let me show you our final {i}NSD advertisement and the reveal of 11 NEW designers...


Doesn’t that look like fun!! There are tons of fun challenges & games ready for you to play and WIN!!! Check out the special {i}NSD forum @ mscraps...

And here’s a peak at the beautiful new store colab called: ‘Sonny {hearts} candy’, which you can get FREE with a $10 purchase from now on to May 3rd.... isn’t this so pretty & colorful??!!



Then the main reason why I’m here now... right this minute. It’s 22.00 (exactly, which means I’m late! LOL) and the Mscraps blogtrain is leaving from the first station, the Mscraps forum right here!

If you follow the train from station to station you are able to collect 33, YES 33 freebies made by our lovely designers & creative team! These freebies include some mini kits, add-on, Quick Pages & more...

 

If you took the right train you came here through Mi Monteiro’s blog, right?? If not, you might want to go back to the first stop in our forum, this way you won’t miss out on any of the freebies! Please be aware that lots of us are on different timezones, so maybe not all the posts are up yet...

Now let me show you the FREEBIE I made for the Mscraps {i}NSD blogtrain...



>>>> You can download this FREEBIE right HERE <<<<


Please remember that everyone who provided you with a freebie for the Mscraps blogtrain has invested a lot of time to make you these wonderful gifts... So it’s nothing but fair to leave them a sweet little comment or thank you note! :)

Now your next stop for the Mscraps blogtrain is...our sweet...  Phoebe, Go see what she has in store for you! :)

I’ll be back tomorrow with more fab news, sales & I’ll maybe even share some new goodies I purchased. One thing is for sure... I will be around all day tomorrow!! Enjoy {i}NSD peeps! –xx-

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Happy (almost) {inter}national Scrapbooking Day!!

Only a few hours till it’s officially {i}NSD, but the fun already started here and there... Like @ Mscraps... The fun began this morning and the 30% off storewide sale has kicked off. Let me show you our final {i}NSD advertisement and the reveal of 11 NEW designers...


Doesn’t that look like fun!! There are tons of fun challenges & games ready for you to play and WIN!!! Check out the special {i}NSD forum @ mscraps...

And here’s a peak at the beautiful new store colab called: ‘Sonny {hearts} candy’, which you can get FREE with a $10 purchase from now on to May 3rd.... isn’t this so pretty & colorful??!!



Then the main reason why I’m here now... right this minute. It’s 22.00 (exactly, which means I’m late! LOL) and the Mscraps blogtrain is leaving from the first station, the Mscraps forum right here!

If you follow the train from station to station you are able to collect 33, YES 33 freebies made by our lovely designers & creative team! These freebies include some mini kits, add-on, Quick Pages & more...

 

If you took the right train you came here through Mi Monteiro’s blog, right?? If not, you might want to go back to the first stop in our forum, this way you won’t miss out on any of the freebies! Please be aware that lots of us are on different timezones, so maybe not all the posts are up yet...

Now let me show you the FREEBIE I made for the Mscraps {i}NSD blogtrain...



>>>> You can download this FREEBIE right HERE <<<<


Please remember that everyone who provided you with a freebie for the Mscraps blogtrain has invested a lot of time to make you these wonderful gifts... So it’s nothing but fair to leave them a sweet little comment or thank you note! :)

Now your next stop for the Mscraps blogtrain is...our sweet...  Phoebe, Go see what she has in store for you! :)

I’ll be back tomorrow with more fab news, sales & I’ll maybe even share some new goodies I purchased. One thing is for sure... I will be around all day tomorrow!! Enjoy {i}NSD peeps! –xx-

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‘Any given Thursday’ – Getting ready for...

 

 

 

{inter} National Scrapbook Day!!! I’ve been busy creating a cute Freebie for you for the Mscraps blogtrain and well I’ve been scrapping like a mad woman!! Both Mscraps & After five designs are adding some fabulous new designers to their stores and there’s too much pretty stuff to scrap with... Really I can’t hardly pick and want to use it all! But wel...I’m kind of running out of time here! I still have got lots to do, like preparing the big blogpost for Mscraps and then I need to get ALL those new pages into my gallery’s and of course I want to shop, cause there are some awsome digi-sales out there!

On top of that... Tomorrow it’s Queensday here in The Netherlands and the fun starts tonight already!! We planned to go to Utrecht tonight cause there’s the biggest flea-market..but to be honest, that’s NOT why were going! There are lots of stages and the music rocks. Just like last year we planned to go to 'the ‘domplein’ to enjoy ‘Veronica’s’ awsome 80’s & 90’s music and I can’t wait. Although I hope I can keep up...hehe. But first... I’ve got to work from 13PM till 17.45PM and well, I’m running out of time!

Geesh...anyways, let’s get on to business now! Mscraps is having a fun iNSD planned for you all and I’ll tell you, you don’t want to miss that at ALL!!! We’re hosting another round of our fun blogtrain, revealing the new designer line-up and of course there’s a fab sale and lots of fun games & challenges. Check out the party ad!

 

 
So where are you going to spend your iNSD??? Well I think I KNOW!!! If you want to see more, check out the full schedule of fun here: http://mscraps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1340.

Oh and the 30% OFF SALE already starts tomorrow!!!

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I will enlighten you about the FUn at after five designs as soon as I get my hands on all the info!

Other then my two fav stores there are lots more sales out there... There’s an awsome MASTER list at DST with all the sales and fun events all lined-up for your confience!! You just have to see!

Then the sweet CREASHENS is guesting over at The Lilypad this month and the new BYOC is already out. Shen has created some pretty goodies for you!! I haven’t had time to play yet and just downloaded all the stuff....so hopefully I have some time left before I have to go to work to make her a lovely page. EDIT< EDIT... Just made a page using her fab BYOC goodies...

Check out Creashens parts of the NEW May BYOC at the Lilypad!! >>>




All these goodies are on sale with 20% off and you can get each single pack for just $3 or LESS!!

And here’s my page :)


Now ladies & gents, I’m off to have breakfast, take a shower, get a gift for a house-warming and go to the bank and hopefully there’s still some time left to squeeze in some scrapping! See you soon and enjoy this beautiful sunny day!  -hugs-

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Fun stuff coming up...

Well I guess you noticed that I missed my ‘Any given Thursday’... Well a lot of things happened in our pretty sweet life the past 2 weeks. Things that weren’t planned and on top of that it’s been very busy work & sports related, but other then that we’re doing great! But good things are coming our way and we’re pretty excited!

I wanted to share some new goodies out in digiland and from my creative teams, but that has to wait. Yesterday I babysitted our sweet 2nd cousin Quinn (turning 3 in Sept.) and the boy, really is the cutest. He behaved so well and was just sweet for his ‘auntie’. My cousin Sylvia is a single child, so she named us en my bro & his GF to aunts & uncles and I like it! We went to the petting zoo and he loved it... when we got back we made my guy a yummy lunch and Quinn was so proud. After we took a little nap together we went to my parents and enjoyed sitting in the sun in the backyard! It was a beautiful day and they say today is going to be another gorgeous & sunny day! :) here are two of my fav. photos... Haven’t processed these yet...straight out of my camera!

Keep watching my blog as I’m going to share lots of fun news about next weekend, cause it’s my favorite digiscrapping weekend of all. It’s ‘International scrapbooking day’!!!! And there are going to be tons of fun things happening in digiland and some awsome sales of course. So be on the look-out for that!

 

Now gotta run, to pack my stuff and all, cause I’ve got a fun shoot in 20 mins. with my colleague, her family & her brothers family...wish me luck! :) See you soonish –xx-

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‘Any given Thursday’ photo processing

Hey there ladies & gents... It’s Thursday again and today I want to share some tips and ideas about processing your photos and fun actions & textures to help you do that.

I have several programs to process my photos... First I have my ACDSee photomanager pro 3. I have instant acces to all my photos after I imported them to my computer (or to an EHD in my case). You can set properties & categorize your photos... The great thing about ACDSee’s photo manager is the fact you can also process RAW images. ACDSee’s photo manager is the program where I do the basic editing like: editing shadow/highlights, boost colors, fix exposure, white balance & tones curves.

When I’m done with the basic processing, I’ve got different kinds of programs & tools to use to give my photos that little extra. I’ve got Adobe’s lightroom 2 and lots awsome presets. I know there are tons of free presets out there and google does the trick for you! :) But I have to be honest and say that I haven’t used my lightroom for months, now that I’m the proud owner of...

Adobe photoshop CS4!! I only purchased this software for my photo processing since I saw so many gorgeous photos processed in this program and the presets which are available in digiland are A-MA-ZING! I’m truly in love with this program combined with, especially Sarah’s – My 4 hens photography actions. They truly rock... Let me show you some of my favorite sets...

Then Sarah’s also got a few awsome freebies here & here. I’ll tell you, once you’re tried them you’re going to be hooked!!! She also has two awsome sets called: the photographers tool box I & II. Oh and I heard some great news about the fact Sarah is going to make some yummy textures too... Here are a few fun before and after shots using sarah’s actions... Simply open the photo and run the action you like.
 

Textures are another thing now-a-days I can’t stop playing with... Especially the ones from the Flora bella Collection. They give your photo and wondering textured feel and it gives the photo something special. Open the photo and add any of the textures to your photo... Now play with the edit mode and try different settings like: overlay, hard light/soft light and then play with the opacity till you think it’s perfect! And really, that’s all there’s to it! Here are a few of the photos I did this week...and the before & after pics 
 
Then there’s one more lady who brilliantly makes beautiful textures & PS actions. Obviously I thought this sweet woman was on a break, cause I really missed her daily photos for project 365 last year. And I’m sure you’ve heard of the name: Annie Manning, if you’ve been around in digiland for a while. Well, I recently discovered that she’s made some beautiful action & texture sets and it’s a shame I haven’t purchased or even tried some of them. I’ve always been a BIG fan of anything she does and no clue how I missed this! She’s got a beautiful site : Paint the moon – photography & photographer’s tools, you have to check it out!

So these are the basics on how I edit my photos... Please let me know if you have any questions or ideas for a fun tutorial or something, cause I would love to go deeper into this processing thing for you! For fun, here’s one more exsample of a photo I took today...processied with just a simple sun flare...


Oh I almost forgot... Today I found out about a fabulous new website, made and developed by some of my sweet digi-friends. You can clearly see I’ve been out of the loop around here for months, cause I have no idea how I missed this! Anyways... the site is called: VanillaBees and the site is just awsome. It is a fun and beautiful website... They share yummy recipes, ideas and tips for gardening, ideas for fun family days and they host some fun challenges such as digital scrapbook & photography ones...and they have some awsome give-aways...I lurked their site for hours and I played in one of their photography challenges and therefor I finally (*sigh*) made an Flickr account :) 

Uhhm yeah talking about give-aways, when I just stopped by to link you up here I saw an amazing give-away. You can win a $50 Gift to... YOU’LL NEVER guess... I was just talking about her!! $50 to Annie’s Paint the Moon photography!!! Are you serious?? Uuuuh Yes I am!!!


This is truly awsome and sooo generous... So cool, really!!!! Oh and Annie’s got a first class freebie for you on her website here.

Well peeps, it’s time to spend some quality time with my luv... So will see you all this weekend! There are some fun things about to happen in digiland. Both After five designs & Mscraps are adding some new designers to their already fab designer line-up!! See you –xx-

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Blossom & bloom...

Well I told you I would be here this weekend...but obviously I wasn’t! LOL. I’ve been cleaning out the garage, working on my deadline to finish the wedding album went for a long breezy walk in the forrest with my parents and fed my pet...Uhm Doodelle that is, my Pet society cutie...hihi

Anyways I don’t have anything special to share at the moment and already thinking of a fun idea for my ‘Any given Thursday’ blogpost and well my idea list is...empty! LOL... Already you say, well guess so. No really, I do have lots of ideas and I should write them down, don’t worry I will, prob. even tonight while I’m in bed! You know, I always have a blocknote and pen on my bedside table, cause sometimes I a girl can’t sleep at night, cause her head is just way too ful with ideas for cute projects, things she needs to get of her chest and what else... Oh yeah ideas for inspirational blogposts! :)

For now I’m going to leave with some pretty photos of trees & flowers blossoming I took this weekend. This is truly one my fav. seasons and times of the year. When looking around me, all the trees & flowers are starting to come back to life again and I love it...

Thought it would be fun to use some textures on these photos, so I used textures from the ‘Flora Bella collection’.... the fine art textures set II, you have to check them out!







Ok then... see you Thursday, hope you’ll have wonderful day! –x-

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Today is: ‘ANY GIVEN THURSDAY’

Ok ladies, it’s ‘next’ thursday and it’s time to pick a winner for my little contest...  I asked my sweet team-mates from Shen’s creative team to help me out a little... it was too hard!  LOL  Before I’m going to announce the winner, I want to thank everyone for playing along and for these great ideas, I can however just use one... But I’ll know who to turn to next time I need something like this again, you rock!

The winner of my little contest, the lady who gets a kit of choice is....

Drumroll please...
....
....

....
....
....

 

BARBARA!! 

Congrats sweetie and please PM me at Mscraps, with you kit of choice from the lovely Creashens @ Catscrap

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Today I want to share with you, some of favorite blogs...my ‘almost’ daily stops and they all inspire me... here we go...

Little by Little (Beetje bij Beetje in Dutch)

This woman, Francine, really inspires my by the way she writes & how she writes, about the little & big things happening in her life and in the life of her family. She tells all her beautiful stories along with her pretty photos, to give you the best idea of how her day was spend. These are just day-to-day stories about her & her family living in the  TBPIH = the best place in Holland) (HLDVN = het leukste dorp van nederland) :) I love how she writes in both Dutch & English (except for the small stories, those are mostly just in Dutch)  

Smitten kitchen, all about the best and most delicious food...
Deb, is a freelance writer and you can tell that from the way she writes about

food & cooking. She’s got some wonderful recipes and however I tried a few, but have to be honest and say that I failed 3 out of 4 times trying... This failing thing is prob. not because I’m a bad cook, cause I honestly thing I’m a great cook...but well everything is in English and my language skills are ok, but I suck trying to convert the measurements! LOL ...but... I l <3 her recipes!

The Sullivans,
a true story about a man who lost his wife to cancer... On sept 8th 2009 the little Chloe was born and only 14 days after she was born her beloved mom Sara Sullivan passed away. This lady at the SPD forum shared the story with us and had to pay my respects... That day I donated some money to the Sara Sullivan memorial fund. A few weeks later, Brad decided to make these memorial bands for Sara and everyone who donated some money got two of these, including me. Ever since her death I’ve been following Brad’s stories about being a single dad and raising his little girl. Sometimes it gets me teary-eyed... I took a photo of them for my Poject 365 – 2009...


Enjoying the small things, by Kelle Hampton

Kelle has been keeping a blog since 2007, but I recently discovered it. The post where I started following is from not too long ago, titled: ‘Nella Cordeila, A birth story’ She had me from the first second I started reading... It’s such a strong story about her giving birth to her beautiful little girl. The minute she saw her she noticed that Nella had down syndrome when nobody else saw... Kelle is an amazing writer and she is sharing her beautiful heart-warming story with everyone who wants to her. She knew how to prefectly write down everything she felt at that point and I truly admire her for that! Nella is now part of their lives and if you continue to read her blog, you’ll see that they make a beautiful family together!

There are several more blogs I would love to share with you, but will keep it with these four for now. It’s getting close to bedtime and my sweetie is already asleep... ON THE COUCH and I gotta get his butt into going to bed... the poor dude is exhausted!

Will you see here soonish for some fun digi-shoppe news :) Have a great day for what’s left of it...
- Hugs -

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Tulah clothing...tooo cute!!

 

Today while playing my little addictive game...Uhm yes, pet society... I was browsing around facebook and a friend directed me to the TULAH clothes fan page... The most adorable clothing for, of course, Girly’s... I love the name of her brand and the cute outfits & dresses would be perfect for my photography...

Now this wondeful lady is having an awsome give-away with the cutest name: ‘Tulah Tuesday’ where one lucky lady could win : Win $40.00 credit for her designs at her beautiful ETSY shoppe, make sure to take a look!

 

Want to know more... head over to her facebook fan page and make sure to become her FAN, while you’re there!! :)

That’s it for today peeps! See you Thursday! –x-

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A new addiction: Pet society!! & happy easter!

Ok last week I saw this thread at after five designs about a fun feature/application in Facebook...we ll today I had to see for myself. It’s called ‘Pet society’ and well I think I got a new addiction... thanks for that Miss lizzy fizzy! LOL

So this morning I went to check it out and made myself a fun little pet, called doodelle... Have no clue where that name came from though, but might have to change that along the road! Anyways, I found some fun ways to add some extra coins and I went shopping! So the coins I earned, all already spend too! LOL

I bought some furniture for my bathroom, a fish tank, some food (cause well my sweet lil pet’s got to eat too, right?), some comfy pillows & seeds to grow in my garden... I also started cooking and made my first two dishes...LOL. Really it’s like I’m talking about real life! hehe

Anyways let me show you my little house on the pet society world...
My living room (part of it)
 

My bathroom and chill/tv room :) I know it’s still a bit empty, looking at others’ houses and rooms, but I need more money! haha

I’ve been playing from 13.00 till uhm now which is almost 17.00! Yeah I’m serious...so miss Lizzy, please don’t ever show off any of these fun apps. oh and here’s how the neighbourhood looks like

*sigh* I’m sooo glad we’ve got an extra day off this weekend to celebrate easter...

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

My to-do-list is still huge and I really hope I’ll get some extra things done this weekend, already took two things off of my list...although playing this game, isn’t really helping is it?? I’ve got to finish the wedding album from the wedding I had on Feb 18th and since I told them it would take me approx. 2 months...so I gotta get my butt into gear and work on that. But first I’m going to scrap a page or two...

Joyce paul, is featured designer at The daily digi this month and she has made some incredibly pretty stuff for that... I just downloaded a new kit and can’t wait to play with it... Si peeps, I’m off for today!!

Have a great easter weekend and make sure to check out my previous post, for a chance to win a kit of choice from Creashens! –xx-

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Thursdays?? – Blog pimpin’

 

 

 

 

 

Ok ladies, I decided that Thursdays are going to be fun inspirational days here at my bloggie and I need your help with that!!... read on...

On Thursdays I want to blog with all sorts of tips, ideas & trics... Like; DIY projects for like say decorations, tips to help improve your photography, fun things found on the web, or for pimpin’ your blog...That last one is the idea for today, but before I’m going to enlighten you with my ideas of how a blog should/could look, I need your help!! >>>

I want to give these Thursday a fun & catchy name and I want you to help me out with that! Here’s what I need... A fun name of two words which includes the word ‘Thursdays or Thursday’. It can be anything! really I’m not good at thinking of these kind of names (like I once asked my bloggers to help me think of a name for my blog, which was ages ago BTW). I did think of a few dull ones like:

- ‘Thursday tips & trics’ – ‘Tricky Thursday’ – Mmmm yeah that was about it! LOL But obviously those aren’t it... I would like to ask you to think of a cute name and leave me a comment right here on the blog! of course (if you know me) there’s a prize involved here!!! The lady with the best idea and of course the one I’ll be using in the future gets a kit of choice from CREASHENS...

Yeah THE Shenster....you read that right! :) Isn’t that fun??

Now ladies all I can say is: brainstorm away!!! :) I’m going to pick a winner on April 8th...so you’ve got a week to share your ideas with me!

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Now let’s get on to business... Today is all about ‘Blog pimpin’! ever since I aired this sweet new blog of mine I got lots of comments about my blogdesign and I want to share my BIG secret with you all. here’s how it all starts... making a new blog/ or pimpifying (I don’t think that’s a word!LOL) your old one. These tips & pimpage is all for the blogger users, I’m sure you can use these ideas for other blog services too, but I have no clue how they work! :)

So the perfect blog look?? For me that would be a fun colorful look with not too much patterns and things going on... But of course it can be the other way around too, with a beautiful patterned background and things like that. Anyways I’m getting a little misty here, keep on track girl, cause I’ve got a long way to go.... Today I want to share with you the secret of those cute little sidebar tags & making a new header...

I like to keep the things cute, but simple and this is always the look I’ve been searching for on my blog. The first years I kept a blog, they were all very simple and just a header (how awful, they were, looking back at them now LOL) and when I saw these tags somewhere I had to have them for this bloggie too....

Before we start on ‘how to make those tags’, you may want a cute new blogger template. Blogger has it’s own simple standard templates, but there are tons of sites out there, with cute other ones. If you just google for –free blogger templates- you’ll find enough pretty templates. I got mine from http://www.ourblogtemplates.com/ and they have tons of them.

Now for the header... These days, blogger wants to keep it simple for us... the ones who don’t know anything about HTML, people like me! LOL... And I love them for it. When you go to layout, and choose ‘page-elements’ this is what you see... (although mine will look a bit different since it’s in dutch)


Let’s start with the header...
- I made mine the following size when I made in my editor: 3600x850 pixels. This way it’s big enough and easier to add things to it. When it was done I resized it to 900x213. But you might want to play with the size to see how it will look... you can make it higher or thinner, depends on what you like.
- When you’re done with the header and resized...simply go to > Layout > page elements...
- You need to edit the bar on the top (for it was the second, but this depends on which template you’re using) where it says the blog title.
- Upload the resized blog header from your computer

- Then choose, under placement in that same pop-up screen > ‘instead of title & description’... so that you won’t see those all over your pretty header

- Make sure to save it! And that’s that!

Now to make those cute tags...

- Pick a kit that works for you... I try to use everything from one kit & one designer, to keep the credits simple.
- Choose a pretty lightly textured or plain colored background paper and crop it the shape you want. Mine were 1180x600 when I made them and then I resized them to: 115x59
- Make the tags with the category’s you’ll need like : blogroll, CT’s, Archives and whatever else you want & need... I made one for each category on my blog. NOTE: when making the category’s make sure to make a little list of which ones you want to have on top/ or bottom... This can help you’re when making tags like mine, with diff. colored birds and such... 

(Now comes the hard part...LOL) ... although I thought so, miss toucanscraps told me the easy way to upload them, so that’s what I’m going to share!
Go to the layout > page elements....
- Click the ‘add gadget’ button, search for the ‘picture’ box and click the + sign, in the pop-up screen add the risized tag from your computer... (I’m sure you don’t even have to resize, but haven’t tried that)

- Now place the box where you want it to be in your sidebar... You can always change this later, but remember my little note earlier! :)

- Now if you made like a tag for :creative teams, like I did... Click the ‘add gadget’ button again and add ‘link list’. Make sure when you add those boxes under the tag box, to LEAVE THE TITLE field EMPTY!, cause that’s what you made the tag for, right? Now drag the ‘link list’ under that HTML box and click save... and so on with all the tags & category’s. If you’re done it will look like this... If you look closely, you’ll see that I have a.... 

picture (=afbeelding in dutch)
link list

picture
link list

and so on.... 


So there you have it... You’ve got the first things done to make give your blog a cute personal look!! Make sure when you add things or move around things, to clikc the save button now and then. I never had any problems with that, but you know...just in case! After you’ve saved it, you can preview your blog and change it when you need to...

I have to be honest and say that I’m not so good in explaining, but I’m sure if you look closely to your ‘page elements’ page it will be easy peasy... You just need to try! And if you have any more questions, I’m willing to answer them! :)

Have fun with this and would love to see if you decided to pimp your blog... Ok peeps, it’s bedtime for me, cause I’ve got another day of work before weekend’s here...and that’s going to be a long & sweet easter weekend, cause we’ve got Monday off too!! Yippie!

Have a great day and will see you soon! –x-

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