You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream - Happy New Year!!!
Saturday, December 31, 2016 Somerset, UK
Last year I decided to set myself a blogging challenge. On NYE 2015, my blog had received 37,000 hits (this is the number of visits, pages turns and menu clicks). This had taken me 18 months to achieve. I decided then and there to challenge myself to reach 100,000 hits by NYE 2016. I am very pleased to say that I have achieved my goal and my blog has received so far 107,000+ hits!!!!!!
Thank you to all my blog subscribers and followers on social media, I couldn't have done this with you. Have a great 2017!! and remember....
"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream" - C. S. Lewis
I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas break and are looking forward to welcoming 2017 in a few days time! I'd like to shout out a big welcome to all my new subscribers and followers who have followed me this month!
If you are visiting my blog for the first time, hello! My name is Kim and I live in the UK. If you live in UK, The Netherlands, Germany, France and Austria, you can purchase Stampin' Up! products from my online shop. If you are visiting from further afield, a very warm welcome to you! I hope you find some inspiration here today. You are more than welcome to follow me through any of my social media channels and keep up to date with my craft creations.
Today I am taking part in Kylie Bertucci's Stampin' Up! Blog Highlight and I am using new products from the forthcoming Stampin' Up! Spring Summer 2017 catalogue which is available to order from on 4th January 2017!! Our theme for this highlight is encouragement as we all need a kind word said to us to build us up.
Voting is now live over on Kylie's blog and I would love it if you could click here to see what everyone has made. The top ten winners will get to be part of an international blog hop, if you like my project, I would very much appreciate you voting for me.
My project features 2 new products from Stampin' Up! Spring Summer 2017 catalogue plus the new Stitched Shapes Framelit Dies which should be back in stock and available to purchase again mid-January!
First up we have a lovely new designer series paper. Its called Falling In Love and all of the sheets are pastel colours and are such lovely soft patterns. Aren't they gorgeous? I've used the sheet on the very far left in my project today. I bought myself two packs in the pre order available to demonstrators as I can see myself using this DSP a lot.
The next new product I have used are the new Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits Dies. There is a coordinating stamp set which you can purchase with the thinlits as a bundle at 10% off. I haven't used this today but I am sure I will be soon. There are 5 dies included in this set which include 4 different dragonflies and a cute little bee!
Now over to my project, I've made a thank you card and coordinating treat bag. I love a matching set! This bag is exactly the same design as my previous blog post, a design that I actually created (my first original!).
Take a look by clicking here to see my Christmas version, you can see the shape a little better on this link. This treat bag has been very popular with my subscribers and followers - its now in my top 10 blog posts (currently it's at no. 5) and my blog has been live for almost 2.5 years.
I've had lots of requests to publish instructions on how to make it so I am currently considering my first YouTube video - eeek! I'll give it a try but if I am not confident with it, the very least I will provide is a pictorial. Make sure you subscribe to my blog to be notified of my blog post when I release the instructions. I plan to do this very soon.
Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to head over to Kylie's blog to vote!
Thank you card & Treat Bag feat. Falling In Love Designer Series Paper & Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits Dies by Stampin' Up!
Somerset, UK
I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas break and are looking forward to welcoming 2017 in a few days time! I'd like to shout out a big welcome to all my new subscribers and followers who have followed me this month!
If you are visiting my blog for the first time, hello! My name is Kim and I live in the UK. If you live in UK, The Netherlands, Germany, France and Austria, you can purchase Stampin' Up! products from my online shop. If you are visiting from further afield, a very warm welcome to you! I hope you find some inspiration here today. You are more than welcome to follow me through any of my social media channels and keep up to date with my craft creations.
Today I am taking part in Kylie Bertucci's Stampin' Up! Blog Highlight and I am using new products from the forthcoming Stampin' Up! Spring Summer 2017 catalogue which is available to order from on 4th January 2017!! Our theme for this highlight is encouragement as we all need a kind word said to us to build us up.
Voting is now live over on Kylie's blog and I would love it if you could click here to see what everyone has made. The top ten winners will get to be part of an international blog hop, if you like my project, I would very much appreciate you voting for me.
My project features 2 new products from Stampin' Up! Spring Summer 2017 catalogue plus the new Stitched Shapes Framelit Dies which should be back in stock and available to purchase again mid-January!
First up we have a lovely new designer series paper. Its called Falling In Love and all of the sheets are pastel colours and are such lovely soft patterns. Aren't they gorgeous? I've used the sheet on the very far left in my project today. I bought myself two packs in the pre order available to demonstrators as I can see myself using this DSP a lot.
The next new product I have used are the new Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits Dies. There is a coordinating stamp set which you can purchase with the thinlits as a bundle at 10% off. I haven't used this today but I am sure I will be soon. There are 5 dies included in this set which include 4 different dragonflies and a cute little bee!
Now over to my project, I've made a thank you card and coordinating treat bag. I love a matching set! This bag is exactly the same design as my previous blog post, a design that I actually created (my first original!).
Take a look by clicking here to see my Christmas version, you can see the shape a little better on this link. This treat bag has been very popular with my subscribers and followers - its now in my top 10 blog posts (currently it's at no. 5) and my blog has been live for almost 2.5 years.
I've had lots of requests to publish instructions on how to make it so I am currently considering my first YouTube video - eeek! I'll give it a try but if I am not confident with it, the very least I will provide is a pictorial. Make sure you subscribe to my blog to be notified of my blog post when I release the instructions. I plan to do this very soon.
Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to head over to Kylie's blog to vote!
Christmas Treat Bags using 6" x 6" Candy Cane Lane Designer Series Paper by Stampin' Up!
Thursday, December 22, 2016 Somerset, UK
Time has gone by so quickly and unfortunately I never got a chance to make any handmade Christmas cards this year. It's such as shame as I had so much lovely product to use. Thankfully I managed to quickly whip up 21 of these ever so cute gift bags for my team and my colleagues at work. They are really quick to cut and build - but they take a little longer to embellish.
They contain a few chocolate Celebrations. We've already gone through quite a few boxes of Celebrations and other treats in the office so these gifts were more a token of my appreciation for all the team's hard work this year. I hope they liked receiving them!
I'm actually quite proud of these little treat bags, they are my first original design!! Its more than likely someone, somewhere in the world would have also made this shape bag but I certainly haven't seen them before.
The collage below shows the shape of the bag a little better. It's super simple to make and if anyone is interested, please make sure you leave a comment asking me to publish the instructions. If I get a good response, it might just tempt me to do my first YouTube video.
EDIT - Here is my tutorial (I'm using different DSP) where I show you how I made these treat bags!
Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a wonderful Christmas and New Year. I would also like to say thank you to all my followers and subscribers across all channels for following and supporting me for the past two and a half years. I am so pleased you found something, either on my blog or my social media pages - that you liked enough for you to subscribe or follow me - thank you!
Have a great time this Christmas everyone and stay safe x
p.s my broadband is only just up and running again so hopefully I'll be back to blogging regularly again the the New Year. Currently I have a speed of 3.5 mb, so wish me luck!
What a nightmare..... having had no wi-fi for almost a month, I have had to resort to buying a mobile wi-fi device for my home. There is still no progress on it being fixed (most of the housing estate are also suffering) so I am limited on when I can go online on my laptop. It also means no catch up TV, Christmas shopping on my mobile phone and massive data charges on both mine and my husbands mobile phones. Naturally blogging has had to suffer and this is really disappointing for me. Massive apologies to all my blog readers, fingers crossed it will be fixed in the New Year.
Anyway, here I am with my entry for this months Pinkies Team Design Challenge. How cute is this gift bag?
We've been challenged to use punching techniques and for my project I've used the Gift Bag Punch Board and the 2", 1 3/4" and 1/2" Circle Punches.
For the gift bag I cut the Candy Cane Lane Designer Series Paper to 11" by 7" and used the medium setting on the punch board.
Head over to Michelle Lasts blog on Tuesday by clicking here and make sure you vote for your 3 favourite projects. Voting is live for 3 days and the winner receives a £20 spending spree of Stampin' Up! products as a gift from Michelle.
Hopefully I'll be back again for Christmas, but in case I'm not - have a wonderful Christmas!
What a nightmare..... having had no wi-fi for almost a month, I have had to resort to buying a mobile wi-fi device for my home. There is still no progress on it being fixed (most of the housing estate are also suffering) so I am limited on when I can go online on my laptop. It also means no catch up TV, Christmas shopping on my mobile phone and massive data charges on both mine and my husbands mobile phones. Naturally blogging has had to suffer and this is really disappointing for me. Massive apologies to all my blog readers, fingers crossed it will be fixed in the New Year.
Anyway, here I am with my entry for this months Pinkies Team Design Challenge. How cute is this gift bag?
We've been challenged to use punching techniques and for my project I've used the Gift Bag Punch Board and the 2", 1 3/4" and 1/2" Circle Punches.
For the gift bag I cut the Candy Cane Lane Designer Series Paper to 11" by 7" and used the medium setting on the punch board.
Head over to Michelle Lasts blog on Tuesday by clicking here and make sure you vote for your 3 favourite projects. Voting is live for 3 days and the winner receives a £20 spending spree of Stampin' Up! products as a gift from Michelle.
Hopefully I'll be back again for Christmas, but in case I'm not - have a wonderful Christmas!
I made this card for a friend of mine Sasha, who is also a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator. It was her birthday earlier this month and I wanted to send her a surprise. Sasha has a blog too so please go and check it out by clicking here.
The paper is just so cute I had to use it again. I never feel pressure to over embellish a card and this is one of those simple cards that I like to make.
My last project used the same Designer Series Paper and also featured the colour grey - if you missed it, take a look at it by clicking here. Its interesting to see how different colours paired with grey look so different. Grey is very versatile and I have been meaning for ages to try it with yellow. I love this version which uses two greys - Basic Gray, Smokey Slate and Pool Party.
That's it from me today. I hope to be back in the next week or two. Unfortunately I have WiFi issues at home so I am blogging from work on my lunch break today.
in
2016
I made this card for a friend of mine Sasha, who is also a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator. It was her birthday earlier this month and I wanted to send her a surprise. Sasha has a blog too so please go and check it out by clicking here.
The paper is just so cute I had to use it again. I never feel pressure to over embellish a card and this is one of those simple cards that I like to make.
My last project used the same Designer Series Paper and also featured the colour grey - if you missed it, take a look at it by clicking here. Its interesting to see how different colours paired with grey look so different. Grey is very versatile and I have been meaning for ages to try it with yellow. I love this version which uses two greys - Basic Gray, Smokey Slate and Pool Party.
That's it from me today. I hope to be back in the next week or two. Unfortunately I have WiFi issues at home so I am blogging from work on my lunch break today.
International Project Highlights Visual Blog Hop showcasing A Little Foxy Designer Series Paper Stack
Tuesday, November 22, 2016 Somerset, UK
Welcome to our International Project Highlights using current Stampin' Up!® Products. We have all created a gallery of projects for you to be inspired by! We would love it if you could visit every one of our blogs and see more photos of our projects. If you scroll down to the end of this blog post, you can see the gallery of all of our projects. This will be shown on every blog that you click on.
My project today is a thank you gift that I made for my downline Aimee who is now a qualified Stampin' Up! recruit. I decided to make her a handmade gift and present it to her at the recent Onstage Local event in Telford, directly after I had to stand up for being in the cateogry of having 1-4 qualified recruits.
I decided to use the A Little Foxy Designer Series Paper Stack as the main feature of my project. Isn't this pattern just too cute? I might just have to get the coordinating stamp and punch now!
I love the colour grey (grey IS the new black - you heard it here). In fact most of my house is now grey and what I love about it is how an additional pop of colour can really transform it from looking dull into something that looks very cool. Why don't you give it a try in your projects - it looks great with most colours!
For today's project I've used Basic Gray and Sweet Sugarplum and I LOVE it. I used Blushing Bride Glimmer Paper to die cut the word congrats using the Sunshine Wishes Thinlits Dies. In real life, I think it looks so much better alongside the Sweet Sugarplum, unfortunately this image just does not do it justice.
I made a matching box to go along with the card which was to hold a EOS Lip Balm that I picked up when I was in the states a few months ago. You can pick them up from Amazon too.
This little box is perfect for holding this lip balm and I would like to credit my friend Sam Hammond aka Pootles for this fab design - if you haven't see Sam's version already, visit her blog by clicking here.
I changed a couple of things from Sam's design - I used different colours, I added a layer to the lid of the box and I used the same pattern DSP for the lid as I did for the rest of the box. I also added the fabulously sparkly Glitter Ribbon which is in the current Autumn Winter Catalogue. I'm on my second pack already and I will be really sad to see this go.
Now, my bows aren't ever that great, but I really find this particular ribbon so much more enjoyable to tie into a bow than any other ribbon - my bows still need some work but I'm happy with how they turned out.
Thank you so much for visiting my blog today, there are so many amazing ideas and inspiration you don't want to miss, so make sure you visit the blogs in the list below and let us know you visited our blogs by leaving a comment. We know that you will love our gallery of projects made from Stampin' Up!® Demonstrators around the world!
The weekend before last was the Stampin' Up! Onstage Local event in Telford. Its a mini convention where Stampin' Up! demos get together and find out about new products, receive business training, recognise each other success, receive free products and SWAP!
I decided to use products from the Stampin' Up! Autumn Winter Catalogue and I made 70 Candy Cane Lane Lotus Biscuit Christmas Hanging Tree Treats swaps. I got such a lovely range of swaps back and hopefully I will get a chance to share these with you. Maybe I might finally do a YouTube video?
The Candy Cane Lane Product Suite is just lovely. Whilst I usually favour non traditional colours at Christmas, the main colours featured in this suite, Crumb Cake and Real Red are just perfect to use for the swap idea I had. Early Espresso and Whisper White are also featured in this suite but I decided to use the side of the DSP that was mainly Crumb Cake so my swaps had a uniform look.
I used all of these products shown in the collage below to make my swaps - Read Red & Crumb Cake Stampin' Write Markers, Layering Oval Framelit Dies, Read Red & Whisper White cardstock, Real Red Stitched Edge Ribbon, Candy Cane Christmas stamp set and the Candy Cane Lane Designer Series Paper. You can order all of these from my online shop 24/7.
To make my swap, I simply cut a piece of DSP long enough and wide enough that wrapped around the biscuit. I then stapled the ribbon around the centre of the long side. I then used Fast Fuse to adhere the DSP wrap to the biscuit.
I then used my Stampin' Write Markers to colour in the stamp. I loved the look shown in the catalogue using 2 different colours on the one stamp. It was totally worth the time it took! The trick is to breathe on the stamp after you've coloured in stamp to reactivate the ink. I really enjoyed using this technique so I ordered the Regals & Subtles Marker packs in my recent order and I am looking forward to colouring stamps in again in the future.
Next I die cut the stamped image using the Layering Ovals dies. I layered the Whisper White oval on top of Real Red Cardstock, using the scallop oval die from the same set. I then used Stampin' Dimensionals to attach it to the front of the biscuit, hiding the staples I used to make sure the ribbon stayed put.
If you don't know what Lotus biscuits are, here is a picture of them. You can buy packs of 20 inexpensively on Amazon and from pound stores. You might have had one or two of these biscuits on the side of a hot drink in a coffee shop - I don't know anyone who doesn't like these so I hope everyone enjoyed receiving one of these as my swap.
I've put together a collage of some photos from Onstage Local in Telford. Here are me and my friends Aimee, Baz & Sasha - we had a great time and I can't wait until the next event. As well as attending this event, we all attended an craft afternoon arranged by Sarah Berry the day before. It was such fun and Sarah created some fab projects for us to make - to see pictures from the day, visit Sarah's blog by clicking here. We all went to Nandos in the evening and chatted the evening away with friends old and new, it was lovely but there might have been too much red wine consumed!
Do you want to come along to a Stampin' Up! next time? All you have to do is join my team of demonstrators and you will be eligible to attend Stampin' Up! events and also events set up by members of Michelle Last's Pinkies group. Please do get in touch with me if you want to find out more about joining and how you would benefit from 20% discount.
I am so thankful to have Michelle as my upline, Michelle runs a successful business, supports the whole Pinkies team all year round through team events, team challenges, Facebook groups and parties - and every now and then some happy mail just turns up. I was so thrilled to find out that Michelle is the #1 Stampin' Up! Demo for the UK and is placed 3rd in the world in the global 100. What am amazing achievement - well done Michelle!
I was also excited to be recognised for having recruited a team member in 2016. You don't get to walk the stage but you do get to stand up and be cheered on by fellow demos and receive a ribbon to attach to your badge. I am a hobby demo at heart but I am pleased Aimee decided to join my team in February during Sale-a-Bration and would love to welcome more team members. Aimee became a qualified recruit a few months ago and is enjoying the journey she has taken with Stampin' Up! This was her first Stampin' Up! event and I made a little gift for Aimee to recognise her becoming a qualified recruit. This will be featuring on my blog very soon. If you want to check out Aimee's cards you can find her on Pinterest by clicking here
I hope you have enjoyed reading about Onstage and looking at my swaps today!
Stampin' Up! OnStage Local & Candy Cane Lane Lotus Biscuit Christmas Hanging Tree Treats
Somerset, UK
The weekend before last was the Stampin' Up! Onstage Local event in Telford. Its a mini convention where Stampin' Up! demos get together and find out about new products, receive business training, recognise each other success, receive free products and SWAP!
I decided to use products from the Stampin' Up! Autumn Winter Catalogue and I made 70 Candy Cane Lane Lotus Biscuit Christmas Hanging Tree Treats swaps. I got such a lovely range of swaps back and hopefully I will get a chance to share these with you. Maybe I might finally do a YouTube video?
The Candy Cane Lane Product Suite is just lovely. Whilst I usually favour non traditional colours at Christmas, the main colours featured in this suite, Crumb Cake and Real Red are just perfect to use for the swap idea I had. Early Espresso and Whisper White are also featured in this suite but I decided to use the side of the DSP that was mainly Crumb Cake so my swaps had a uniform look.
I used all of these products shown in the collage below to make my swaps - Read Red & Crumb Cake Stampin' Write Markers, Layering Oval Framelit Dies, Read Red & Whisper White cardstock, Real Red Stitched Edge Ribbon, Candy Cane Christmas stamp set and the Candy Cane Lane Designer Series Paper. You can order all of these from my online shop 24/7.
To make my swap, I simply cut a piece of DSP long enough and wide enough that wrapped around the biscuit. I then stapled the ribbon around the centre of the long side. I then used Fast Fuse to adhere the DSP wrap to the biscuit.
I then used my Stampin' Write Markers to colour in the stamp. I loved the look shown in the catalogue using 2 different colours on the one stamp. It was totally worth the time it took! The trick is to breathe on the stamp after you've coloured in stamp to reactivate the ink. I really enjoyed using this technique so I ordered the Regals & Subtles Marker packs in my recent order and I am looking forward to colouring stamps in again in the future.
Next I die cut the stamped image using the Layering Ovals dies. I layered the Whisper White oval on top of Real Red Cardstock, using the scallop oval die from the same set. I then used Stampin' Dimensionals to attach it to the front of the biscuit, hiding the staples I used to make sure the ribbon stayed put.
If you don't know what Lotus biscuits are, here is a picture of them. You can buy packs of 20 inexpensively on Amazon and from pound stores. You might have had one or two of these biscuits on the side of a hot drink in a coffee shop - I don't know anyone who doesn't like these so I hope everyone enjoyed receiving one of these as my swap.
I've put together a collage of some photos from Onstage Local in Telford. Here are me and my friends Aimee, Baz & Sasha - we had a great time and I can't wait until the next event. As well as attending this event, we all attended an craft afternoon arranged by Sarah Berry the day before. It was such fun and Sarah created some fab projects for us to make - to see pictures from the day, visit Sarah's blog by clicking here. We all went to Nandos in the evening and chatted the evening away with friends old and new, it was lovely but there might have been too much red wine consumed!
Do you want to come along to a Stampin' Up! next time? All you have to do is join my team of demonstrators and you will be eligible to attend Stampin' Up! events and also events set up by members of Michelle Last's Pinkies group. Please do get in touch with me if you want to find out more about joining and how you would benefit from 20% discount.
I am so thankful to have Michelle as my upline, Michelle runs a successful business, supports the whole Pinkies team all year round through team events, team challenges, Facebook groups and parties - and every now and then some happy mail just turns up. I was so thrilled to find out that Michelle is the #1 Stampin' Up! Demo for the UK and is placed 3rd in the world in the global 100. What am amazing achievement - well done Michelle!
I was also excited to be recognised for having recruited a team member in 2016. You don't get to walk the stage but you do get to stand up and be cheered on by fellow demos and receive a ribbon to attach to your badge. I am a hobby demo at heart but I am pleased Aimee decided to join my team in February during Sale-a-Bration and would love to welcome more team members. Aimee became a qualified recruit a few months ago and is enjoying the journey she has taken with Stampin' Up! This was her first Stampin' Up! event and I made a little gift for Aimee to recognise her becoming a qualified recruit. This will be featuring on my blog very soon. If you want to check out Aimee's cards you can find her on Pinterest by clicking here
I hope you have enjoyed reading about Onstage and looking at my swaps today!
I work as a Finance Manger and there are 23 of us in the Finance department, 10 of which are in my direct team and I have a further 8 indirect team members. Its such a lovely team and we all get on really well. We're currently planning Christmas activities such as Secret Santa, Christmas Jumper Fridays and a Christmas buffet lunch. We already have two nights out in December, I need to get shopping for some festive outfits!
Anyway, enough about Christmas and back to Halloween. On Friday evening after everyone had left, I left a little bag of Halloween treats on every desk. I hope it brings a smile to everyone's faces when they come into work on Monday morning. Naturally I had to make myself one - here it is on my desk. And yes, there are two 27" monitors on my desk!
I thought it would be nice to have a bit of fun so I asked the team to come up with some ideas on what we can do. Unfortunately we can't do full on fancy dress as we have visitors in the building but we are accessorising! I have some devils horns and a red glittery stake!
Some of the team are also bringing in Halloween themed bakes. I've made puff pastry bakewell tarts, they were meant to look like pumpkins, with flaked almonds for eyes and a nose - but the orange food die did not come out very well so they are not very orange.. I'm looking forward to seeing the cookies and cakes everyone is making! Definitely off the diet today!
We're also having a pumpkin carving competition - I am terrible at carving but I do like to participate, so here is my entry. I kept it simple and trust me, close up, its not very good. I messed up the top so it has no lid - lesson learned for next year. I really can't wait to see what everyone has made! They are sure to be much better than this.
I've made some prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place using the Baker's Box Thinlit Dies but I forgot to photograph them. They were filled with chocolate treats and some popping candy. I used the Spider Web DSP from the Halloween Night Specialty DSP - the web pattern is silver embossed on black and this particular cardstock is thicker than the rest so it was perfect for this box.
Here are the treat bags I made - each has a tag which is hand stamped using the Spooky Fun stamp set and Ghoulish Grunge stamp set. I've stamped in Basic Black and Smoky Slate.
The Halloween Night Specialty DSP is so spooky this year. I love the combination of Basic Black, Basic Gray, Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White and the patterns are really great with lots of variety.
Inside each bag are some popping candy spider chocolates, chocolate eyeballs and pumpkins and jellies. Oh, and a few plastic creepy crawlies!
As promised, here are my own little Halloween accessories Charlie & Bayley. I love my cats and they are always close by when I am in my craft room. Charlie often jumps in my photo studio so I encouraged him to sit down and I took some photos of him with one of the treat bags. I swear he knows I am taking a picture - look at that pose and stare into the camera!
Bayley, bless her, wasn't as comfortable as Charlie and this is the best photo I managed to get of her, She looks a little grumpy but I think she might have been scared of my photography lamps.
Bayley tends to sleep on a bean bag the whole time I'm crafting. Charlie comes and goes and surprises me several times a day by jumping on my craft table. I have to quickly grab my pookey tools and scissors and make sure they are safely put away. Charlie likes to demand attention and I think he sometimes is annoyed when I am engrossed in my work and not him. Bayley is just happy to be snoozing and enjoys a cuddle every few hours.
I hope you have enjoyed my projects and photos today! Keep an eye on my blog over the next week for news and pictures from Onstage Local in Telford. I'm busy making swaps at the moment and getting excited about seeing sneek peeks and being able to pre order from the Spring Summer catalogue. Who knows, we might even get to see some Sale-a-Bration goodies too!
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