My favourite five Christmas cards of 2013

The lovely Debby is running this annual challenge once again - you have to pick your own top five favourite creations, from your OWN blog!

I entered last year with a brown paper bag over my head, I love showing my favourite creations which have been made by others for the Snippets Playground but it always feels like blowing ones own trumpet choosing your own  - which is silly really 'cos you wouldn't be making cards if some of them didn't please you :)

Merry and Bright candles - loved the effect of the Glossy Accents

 Using a Clarity 'Noel' stamp that I'd wanted for ages, embossing it in silver and then masking and stamping a little Winter scene inside the letter O

 My very first 'white on white' card

 Lily of the Valley image, sentiment and papers made for each other, sent to my step-mum who loves it!

 
Close-up below:

I have to say, this one was my VERY favourite, if only 'cos I did some reasonably successful heat embossing, used some of my favourite new dies, combined cream and copper and all the swirls seemed absolutely right somehow.

OK, OK - so I went for a sixth one! I did think about taking the LOTV card out but as I made a lot of LOTV cards which I felt work so well, some were in lovely soft blues, I left it in. This card above was almost a disaster but I did love the end result and will be trying it again for 2014.

It's been a struggle today to do a supermarket shop ready for New Year but I managed - and will come and see all your Playground makes ASAP I promise! I do know you've been busy little bees in the wrecked Playground (a lorra wind took the fencing down, sigh) and for that I love you. Mwah! 

Hope you all have a fabulous New Year, whether you're out partying or (like us) having a quiet evening and possibly trying to hold remnants of Playground fences up - snort  .......... just hoping we survive and stay awake until midnight! It'll be fine, trust me :)

Di
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Garden Flowers Sketch Thank You card

My first bit of crafting for well over a week and, looking at the list of cards needed, this Thank You card was right at the top:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank

- the image was stamped using a favourite Hero Arts stamp called 'Garden Flowers Sketch' and coloured using Polychromos pencils, Sansodor blending solvent and Derwent paper stumps

- sentiment stamp is an Anita's one made by Docrafts, no name though - plus just a little bit of colouring on the flower

- layered onto a snippet of SU's 'Certainly Celery'


Di
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Pixies Snippets Playground - Week 105

We're still a bit Christmas themed in the Playground this week - normal service will resume as soon as possible, I promise :)

This card used just some plain red snippets - it's the last card I made before taking a break from crafting, and was made for my lovely Len:

And a closer peek:

I used:

- 6" x 6" white card blank, scored then folded in half again on one side plus one front to make an easel card

- 'Christmas Cuddles' stamp by Wild Rose Studios, coloured with a mix of Pro Markers and Polychromos pencils. Added 'Polar White' Flower Soft to the little couple's Santa hats :)

- SU 'Real Red' snippets

- dark green patterned paper came from LOTV's 'Classic Christmas' paper pad

- the sentiment is an Elzybells one, stamped with SU 'Real Red' ink

- totally resisted the urge to add too much more, apart from some  round red and green Josy Rose nail heads, plus a red heart shaped one over the little cuddling penguins, aaaah

Len loved it :)

I'd like to enter this into the current 'Merry Monday' challenge which is to  use an animal on your Christmas card.

And also Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 157 which is to share any Christmas card not already shown or made in readiness for next Christmas - as well as Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra, where it's always 'anything goes'.

OK, here are  some picks from the past couple of weeks - as always, such a hard job, and I see they're all Christmas related too. My first pick surely stole the show this week:

This adorable snowman was knitted by Kanda/Andrea's Dad - a very talented gentleman who is aged 93 years young. Well done Doug - you're this week's Playground star pick! I do hope you girls will hop over to say 'Hi' to Doug, Andrea read the comments left already to Doug and he was thrilled.

 

Oh how I love this Christmas card, made by Cornelia. So, so elegant.

Kate, who lives in Spain, used these adorable images to make some great snippets Christmas cards. What totally tickles me is how sweet and innocent the one on the left is, and the angel on the right is twiddling her toes, peeking and also has a slipped halo :) 

This card really has the Wow factor I'm sure you'll agree. Made by Maureen (ScrappyMo) and I was so taken by the way the skates (some clever chalking added to the die cuts) just pop out at you!

This absolutely stunning card made by Cathy R was loved by so many of you playmates. It really is beautiful - and I just spotted that Darnell was also bowled over by it too. Oddly enough, Darnell and I often share the same ideas about weekly picks - shows I must be doing something right :)

I love, love this Gingerbread man/person card made by Bonnie. Fantastic impact and there was much speculation as to where the other two Gingerbread folk she'd lost went to. I reckon they eloped Bonnie!

I absolutely HAD to include this fabulous Rudoff the red nosed reindeer (who is quite clearly a reindeer and certainly NOT a dog), made by Little Mr P (Maureen's grandson) and then carefully hung on her Christmas tree by the little chap himself - adorable!

I'm gonna move onto the draw for those Woodware stamps now - Len is out as I type but am under orders not to sit over the laptop for too long. I feel sooooo much better over the last few days that am going to continue heeding the advice!

So, with a little drum roll, the winner is:

Shaz in Oz

Oh well done Shaz - your stamps will be in the post to you as soon as possible. I know you really loved the Bethlehem one especially so I did smile when your name was chosen this week.

This next week's prize is still a Christmas themed one, it's never too soon to start planning for next year's cards :)

The prize is two stamps, one is the Wild Rose Studios 'Christmas Cuddles' (same as I used for my snippets card today) and the other little cutie was kindly donated by Eve, by Whiff of Joy.

The snippets challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday  4th January and will open again at midnight UK time on the same day. Maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be the winner of the prize, maybe you don't do cute? Now, some of you might already have one of the stamps, or perhaps you might only fancy one of them - if so please do say and if you win I can do a second draw with whatever is left.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, I can sort it out for you quite quickly and am always happy to do so.

Hope you have a wonderful time over any New Year celebrations and that 2014 is a fabulous year for you all.

Di - and of course Parsnip
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Holiday Zentangling

I took bits and pieces to Zentangle with us to Thailand back in October. But most of what I did was just fiddling round trying to get to grips with patterns (I'd forgotten to take any Z books, particularly my Zen Dangles book, sigh) - but doing some rummaging here yesterday I did come across these paltry offerings:

A simple heart.

A 'Tangle Scene' - based on the view from our balcony :)

Hey, if I could 'fess up to the asses ears over the oven business yesterday, then I can surely show how far I need to go before I'd be anywhere near as good as Sarn - go and check her Zentangling out, it's amaaaazing!

Di 
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Wearing asses ears here

Remember the main oven 'disaster' on Christmas Day? Found out today that somehow I'd set the main oven to Auto when I thought I was setting the minute pinger at one point - AND I was still only drinking coffee when I did it! Have now done my homework and read the manual properly - RTFM always helps.

Phew :)

Di
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The little black cat

Well, what a couple of days here :( We lost quite a bit a lot of of the Playground fence in the high winds overnight on 23rd/24th December so poor Len spent a good few hours shoring up, propping up and roping what's left until it can be fixed in the New Year. We're currently 'open plan' as they say - sigh.

Then, Christmas Day was going fine, the bird was cooked, thankfully the pigs in blankets and stuffings were also done. In went the roast vegetables and parsnips in honey. When I checked a while later they were glaring and shivering at me through the oven door doing absolutely nothing - the oven had gone poof, bang, 'kaput'. What?!?! Talk about timing huh :(

Thankfully we have a smaller oven so that came into its own, but it's much slower than the large fan assisted oven. Quite a bit of juggling went on I can tell you! 'Lunch' was mid-afternoon in the end - and it actually turned out really well thankfully, although we did think whatever can happen next.

After clearing up I hopped out to put a rubbish bag into the bin, to be met by a little face looking up at me and quietly miaowing. What followed astonished me so much I didn't grab the camera, but this piccie from the web shows what the little sweetie was like:

Outside our back door was a quite young and still little black cat wearing a sparkly red collar with a gently tinkling bell. It bravely came into the house, possibly lured by lingering smells of food, had a really good wander round for about 10 minutes, sniffed everywhere, gave a little smile and then went back outside and disappeared into the darkness.

Now, I'm quite superstitious and do truly think that little creature hopped in to say 'don't worry, it could be worse'. So wherever you are, our lucky little black cat with sparkly red collar and tinkling bell, thank you!

The rest of our day was spent smiling at the memory of our little visitor - and counting our blessings that what we had to contend with was really nothing in the great scheme of things :)

Hope you all had a great Christmas with no big disasters, and if not then I'll look out for the little black cat and send it over to visit!

Di
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Last minute Christmas cake

As you know, things have been fraught here, but today should be fun - I intend to make a last minute Christmas cake.

I did publish this same recipe a couple of years ago, but some of you who weren't visiting then might not have seen it and may well want to give it a try as well :)

A festive recipe with a difference!

Christmas Cake Recipe

 

Ingredients:

1 cup of water

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup of sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup of brown sugar

lemon juice

4 large eggs

nuts

bottle Vodka

2 cups of dried fruit

Sample the vodka to check quality.

Take a large bowl, check the vodka again.

To be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.

Repeat.

Turn on the electric mixer.

Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.

Add one teaspoon of sugar.

Beat again.

At this point it's best to make sure the vodka is shtill OK.

Try another cup ... just in case

Turn off the mixerer.

Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.

Pick fruit off floor.

Mix on the turner.

If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the vodka to check for tonsisticity.

Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something. Who giveshz a shit.

Check the vodka.

Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.

Add one table.

Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.

Greash the oven.

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.

Don't forget to beat off the turner.

Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the vodka and kick the cat (or wipe down the work surfaces with him/her - your choice).

 

CHERRY MISTMAS!

Snigger, snort, snort! :))

Di - and Perschnipp the bare
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Merry Christmas to the Snippets Playground

This is Parsnip calling.

Sigh, the other day whilst finishing off the very late Christmas decorations, Miss came across the 'Santa's Little Helpers' suits that Hank and Marvin endure wear each Festive Season. Hank and Marvin are PG Tips 'full sized' monkeys and have several changes of clothes - don't even ask, that woman is totally barking :(

Just for fun, she tried one of the suits on me (an even bigger sigh) and then took this embarrassing photo as our Christmas Greeting to all you Playground girlies:

But, in the true spirit of Christmas (despite feeling like a right prune in this outfit) I'd like to join in sending you ALL:

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

WITH LOTS OF LOVE

FROM DI AND PARSNIP

XXXX

Oh the shame of it, thank goodness Hank and Marvin are now dressed up as Santa's Little Helpers instead of me! I much prefer just my own white fur (and the scarf) I was born with :)

Hugs

Parsnip
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We also took your advice (thank you for the very sweet comments) and are now leaving the Playground gates open until Saturday 28th December with Mr Linky still running until 11am that day. It gives you time to enjoy your own Christmas celebrations, although you can come and play anytime of course plus you can add a total of six snippets makes to the current Mr Linky here. It also means we can get ready for Santa without being in a flat out panic as well as relaxing a bit :) 

Hope you all have a super time!

Hugs

Di and Parsnip

xxx

The Snippets Playground

Hi girls

I'm really sorry but we have a crisis or three here today - first the microwave has taken over and is turning itself on, all by itself - NOT a good thing. So (thankfully) a new replacement is to be collected today. We have a sick collared dove in the garden which may need taking to the animal rescue shelter if we can catch it. The ironing is overflowing, my desk is a mess so no room at all to craft and I have a massive list of things to tackle.

Sooooooo, I've re-opened the Playground for another day or so until I can see daylight and do the write up,  draw etc. - not to mention making a snippets card!

You can still link cards so long as Mr Linky is open, even if you already did three - but no more than five in total please.

Back soon!

Di
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Three cheers for the post man!

Our local post man, Steve, is brilliant. He's always cheerful, never scrunches letters and packets through the letter box (unlike his 'cover guy' does if he's on holiday or it's his day off), arrives in all weathers and to be honest delivers one heck of a lot of mail to us.

We always give him a Christmas card with money in and I suddenly realised I only had 'girlie' Christmas cards left - but Len reminded me that Steve has a dog so this is what I made:

I used:

- white DL card blank

- red 'satin finish' mirri card

- a variety of stamps and some glitter to create the scene, sentiment and image - ha, I wish!! I actually used the front of one of last year's cards for speed, quick and easy and a bit of a cheat :)

This is for Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge where the theme is  'Whatever is urgent to make' and it's also for Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra where it's always 'Anything goes'.

Di
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Christmas cards for Mia and Livi

Len's a great one for bright ideas, and he suggested that I use photos of the girlies on their Christmas cards to make them more personal - his other bright idea was to then nip off out to archery leaving me fighting to re-size the images - that guy's not daft :)

Sheesh, these took me almost a whole day in the end. But, besides the photos, I was determined to use the Winter Cabin die as it reminds me so much of their house in Germany.

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card stock

- self adhesive sparkly film in rich blue for the sky and clear sparkly over white card for the foreground

- Memory Box 'Winter Cabin Landscape' die, cut using white Centura Pearl card

- Cheery Lyn's 'Santa's sleigh and reindeer' die, cut from black card already backed with double sided sticky sheet

- photos of Mia and Livi, re-sized (umpteen times!) and die cut with an oval Nestie

- the greetings are sparkly 'Glitterations' peel offs by Papermania

- more peel offs to spell out the girls' names and also to add a few stars here and there (snigger, the girls have star shaped earrings 'cos I got  little glue mark on Livi's photo)

- Rudolph's nose was glittered with 'Xmas Red' Stickles and 'Icicle' Stickles added to the cabin and trees

I made these whilst in the throes of back pain spasms the other week - it's not easy positioning peel offs whilst yelping :)

Di
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Sparrowhawk - nil, sparrows - BIG win

The other afternoon, Len was idly eating a Clementine orange (nicked from Christmas goodies) and watching the back garden/ aka our Playground. And this is what he saw, but it happened so fast it sure isn't his photo!

The sparrowhawk was chasing a little sparrow - which was fleeing for cover into our evergreen huge bush here, where all is its little pals live. At times we've seen up to 40+ of them in one go, chattering and gathering!

Anyhow, with the hawk following at great speed, the teeny sparrow shot into the bush followed by the sparrowhawk and there was such a rumpus :)

For a few seconds the bush rustled like crazy and suddenly out tumbled the sparrowhawk - landing right in the bird bath in a heap. All fluffed up and shaking its head in a daze before it flew off.

I think them sparrows, all 40 or so of them, sorted, 'im out  - bop, bop, bop!!! :)

YAY, hooray for the little birds.

 Di 

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Sarn to the rescue!

Yesterday afternoon I was suddenly reminded that I need to get some Christmas cheques in the post - help! But, this morning I remembered my buddy Sarn showing some teabag holders a little while ago on her blog - here. So I adapted the measurements a tad, found some Christmas patterned paper which wouldn't need decorating and whipped these up in about half an hour:

And when open, I made mine tent style, so I just wrote the message on the upper flap:

I used:

- papers from the Paper Studio 'Cozy Little Christmas' paper pad that I lugged all the way from New Mexico last year. It's 11" x 8.5" and good sturdy stuff too

- the only thing I changed from Sarn's instructions was not to have a double fold at the spine, which means cutting the longest edge at 10.5" and only scoring at 3.5" and 7" ............ 'cos a folded cheque is much flatter than a tea bag :)

Thank you Sarn - I owe you for that!

Di
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Pixies Snippets Playground - Weeks 103 and 104

Still busy in the Playground this week, despite most folk working flat out trying to get ready for Christmas :)

Here's my snippets make:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- a snippet of SU's 'Bashful Blue' card to stamp the image and sentiment onto, using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- the stamp is by Woodware and is called 'Bethlehem'. Although it also lends itself to colouring, I had a plan - which is why I created some more snippets earlier in the week from LOTV's 'Krafty Christmas' paper pad, to do some paper piecing!

- just added a few touches of white in the sky using a white Signo pen and then mounted it onto a snippet of toning Core'dinations card before popping it onto the card blank

It looks a quick and simple card, it was the paper piecing that took forever the time of course. Afraid the stamping isn't perfick, do you KNOW how hard it is to stamp when it hurts to press down? I do believe there's a gizmo you can buy for such times - I might look into that one :)

Onto this week's picks:

I love this card made by Brenda - and the 'schparkle' is amaaaaazing. To check out what Brenda used, do go and see her blog.

Such beautiful elegance, made by Mary H.

A beautiful pillow shaped gift box made by Sarn - love the stamped feather tag!

A fabulous WOW creation, made by Viv. With the super tip of gently inking the edges  and other areas for slight contrast using Versamagic 'Narcissus'. Works beautifully!

A lovely Spring-like card, made by Carol - just to remind us that Winter will be over ........ in a few months.

As always, I could pick every single one of your entries, but time is marching on.

So onto the winner of the Penny Black 'Duckie and Hedgies' stamp:

Sandra H

I have your new address Sandra so will pop this in the post to you ASAP this coming week - can you just confirm that it's a stamp you want, I checked your blog and can see PB stamps being used but not this one so hopefully it's a new one to you!

And, as Christmas is almost here, I'm trying to ensure that in the New Year we revert to non-Christmas goodies as prizes. So over the coming two weeks we have three Woodware Christmas stamps on offer, all as one prize - even if you don't manage to use them for this Christmas I think they'd make a good start for next year's cards:

Of course there's the 'Bethlehem' stamp the same as I used today, then 'Christmas Hoot' (love that owl!) and last but not least 'Little Christmas Bird'. I hope Jules won't mind, this is the fabulous snippets card she made a while back using the same stamp and paper piecing:

Beautiful isn't it?!

NB. The snippets challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 28th December and will open again at midnight UK time on the same day. Maximum of six entries over the two weeks and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be the winner of the prize. Now, some of you might already have one or more of the stamps (like Jules for example), or perhaps you might only fancy one of them - if so please do say and if you win I can do a second draw with whatever is left.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, I can sort it out for you quite quickly and am always happy to do so.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas! Gotta go, I can hear somone shouting something about the chestnut brazier being in danger of setting fire to the Playground bike shed - our Scallywag Sam is just giggling and trying to text me the news whilst Sarn is at least rushing round with her fire warden hat on shouting for fire buckets and a relay team to use up the duck pond water! The ducks have scarpered!!  I despair, really I do.

Di - and of course Parsnip
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The glow worm

Recently I've scarpering up to bed, at a ridiculously early hour (7 to 8pm or so!!) as I was always such a night owl, to read my 'very basic but I LOVE it!' Kindle before sleep, with it own clip on light, and to rest me aching back by lying flat (getting better I think though - sssshhh).

Len trots up to bed, not much later than me after clearing away the evening meal wot I made, or directed with his help, setting the dishwasher etc. and he always asks me to remind him of the words of one of my favourite little ditty as he walks into the bedroom.  He's sort of sniggering as it's usually aglow with a little light - unless am fast asleep whereupon he recovers said Kindle and light, usually from floor and gently takes my reading glasses off me - aaaaaaaw:

I wish I was a glow worm,
A glow worm's never glum.
'Cos how can you be grumpy
When the sun shines out your bum!

Thank goodness for a sense of humour - it makes me giggle every time!

Di
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A Scottish Fairy

 

Snigger :)

I've linked this into Annie's Friday Funny/this week's smiles.

Di

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Wishes for kisses

I do love this Penny Black stamp, unused since October 2011 :(

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- stamped Penny Black image called 'Wishes for kisses', coloured with a mix of Pro Markers and Polychromos pencils - blended using Sansodor mineral blending solution and Derwent blending stumps. A little tip, if you use Sansodor, and it does make such a difference to both Polychromos and Prismacolor pencils, pop a small piece of sponge into a teeny little screw top jar (I used one that had contained embossing powder after cleaning it thoroughly) then just add a small amount of the blending fluid. I just snipped a small piece of makeup sponge to fit the bottom of the jar. That way you just dab the blending stump onto the sponge and don't soak your stump and then the image when blending

- patterned backing paper is by Magnolia called Lingonberry Christmas 'Sweet Christmas Dreams'. Hands up who likes Lingonberry preserve from Ikea - I love it! Not too sweet and sickly - just like a taste of fresh forest fruit

- dark green snippet, die cut using a Nesties 'Floral Oval' die, red snippet hand cut after drawing round a plain oval and then the image die cut with the same oval

- sentiment is by Craftwork Cards, layered onto a SU punched circle - another red snippet

- a tickle of 'Icicle' Stickles on the 'ground' plus a little dot of 'White Opal' Liquid Pearls. for the mistletoe berry

- white Josy Rose nail heads

Still battling on here, in a lot of pain a bit of discomfort (sob, sniff) so am trying to comment on the Playground as entries come in - but might be a day or two or even more behind! Now to make a couple of personalised family Christmas cards - always tricky ones to do :( sigh.

Di
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Making snippets

Bad girl that I am - I chopped up some LOTV papers today with the prime reason of helping me out with this coming week's snippets make. OK,  I made a few snippets but I NEEEDED BROWNS for Sunday and the prize is lovely :)

Now, to me, these are certainly NOT traditional Christmas colours :( But, I had browns in my mind for the papers as you already know and this image has brown in - but YELLOWS?!?!?! I plodded on and at least ended up with some snippets I wanted - not a really Christmas colour scheme huh?!!!

I used:

- 7" x 5" white card blank

- SU's 'Summer Starfruit' card to match the LOTV  'Navitity Play' pre-coloured image -which I chose to match those flipping papers I need snippets of - sigh

- all newly chopped papers and even a few already cut snippets are from the LOTV 'Krafty Christmas ' paper pad

- the star was cut using a die by Memory Box, cut from SU 'Summer Starfruit' again ..... just 'cos I thought there was too much 'white' over the Baby Jesus

- ribbons and cord from the ribbon box

- sentiment is Personal Impressions 'Many Greetings , stamped in Brilliance 'Pearlescent Chocolate' and layered onto SU punches

That's me for today, still not running on all four cylinders but off to brave Costco - someone' s gotta do it! And at least almost all cards are done and en route :) DEEP BREATH!! :)

Di
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