On the 6th Day of Christmas

my true love gave to me

six geese a laying...

fiiiiiive golden riiiings

four colly birds

three French hens

two turtle doves

and a partridge in a pear tree!

In Genesis 1 it says that God created everything about our planet and He said it was good. Then He made us, and He said it was very good. Some scholars believe that when it says "God said..." that actually the word in Hebrew would be better translated "God SANG..." I think that's beautiful. As an artist I find this to be one of the most exciting qualities of God. Anyway, He took six days to complete His creation and that could be what the "six geese a laying" represent on day six - the birth of our planet. Find your download on 4shared or Box. Links will be available until 10 Jan 2011.

On the 5th Day of Christmas

my true love gave to me

fiiiiive gooooolden riiiiiings!

four colly birds

three French hens

two turtle doves

and a partridge in a pear tree!

In our journey through the song, the five golden rings stand for the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Torah or the Pentateuch. Did you know that the early Jews had to memorize the entire five books? Before it was available to every individual in print, audio, or as an iPhone app it was shared orally and memorized. The first five books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. They present the early history of the faith, the old covenant, and the whole reason we need Jesus! This download includes five fun versions of the golden ring. Hopefully one of these rings will work for your layout. :) You can grab it on 4shared or Box.

Day 1 revisited

Wow, my fun little freebie project is turning into something of a headache! I had a request to load Day 1 on Box.net, so you can grab it here if you're having trouble with 4shared. And just for fun, my favorite version of the 12 Days of Christmas, performed by Relient K.

On the 4th Day of Christmas

my true love gave to me

four colly birds...

three French hens

two turtle doves

and a partridge in a pear tree.

According to a few websites the modern version of the fourth day that says "calling birds" might have been mistranslated from "colly birds," which is an old English nickname for a blackbird. That could be, since I can think of at least one other rhyme that refers to blackbirds. Well, some believe that the difference between calling and colly might debunk the Christian theory of the song. The theory being if it's calling birds it represents the four gospels. I don't know why colly birds would force it to NOT represent them though... I mean if French hens can represent faith, hope, and love, why can't blackbirds represent the gospels? I think it's more about the number. Well, anyway, the four gospels are the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and they all tell the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, from four different points of view.

Download from 4shared or Box.

On the 3rd Day of Christmas

my true love gave to me

three French hens...

...two turtle doves

and a partridge in a pear tree.

Here's yesterday's French hens. You may have noticed from yesterday's turtle dove that there was only one dove in the zip. I hope you will understand that sometimes I will only include the graphic once and you can duplicate it how ever many times needed. That won't be the case for every file, but if there are no major differences needed I'll only include it once. So for this download there is one hen, and you can "clone" her to make three. Get it? Clone? Hehe. :)

So what do the three French Hens represent? Well, according to this tradition we're looking at, the three French Hens represent the three virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love from 1 Corinthians 13:13. But I wonder if they could also represent the trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

You can download from 4shared or Box. Thank you Jody for the recommendations! Please let me know which download works best for you.

Broken Links

Ok guys, I'm getting lots of comments about broken links. I can see in 4shared that I've gotten LOTS of downloads of the first two days, and I tested them to make sure they would download. So I think it must be a 4shared problem based on how you are describing what's happening. So I would ask that you keep trying, and maybe give me a suggestion of what download sites you have had the best luck with. Maybe I need to have another option... So, hoping to hear from you and thanks for being patient! I'm glad so many of you are interested in this little project! :)

Running Late

Just a quick note to say the 3rd day download will probably have to wait until tomorrow. I have a lot going on today and won't be home until late. So you may get two downloads tomorrow. Thanks for understanding! :)

On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

... my true love gave to me

two turtle doves...

...and a partridge in a pear tree.

I'm so glad that you all are excited to get the downloads and hear what the strange lyrics may represent! I wanted to remind you that no one knows exactly what the song's origins are, so the meanings I'm listing here are just one theory. But it's the theory I liked the most and it's my blog! :)

So according to this tradition, the two turtle doves represent the two testaments that the Bible is broken into. The first being the old covenant with Abraham, and the second being the new covenant with Jesus the Messiah.

So enjoy the download! You can click the image or here.

1st Day Download

Well, shoot! Apparently I didn't get the download link in the post correctly. I had to giggle at one of the commentors who said "bad links are a good way to get comments." Sorry about that! It should be working now!

On the 1st Day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me

a partridge in a pear tree!

In Germany families put up their Christmas decorations a few days before Christmas and then leave them up until 3 Kings Day, or Epiphany. The song "The 12 Days of Christmas" refer to the time between Christmas and Epiphany.

I was doing some research to see when the days start (on the 25th or 26th) and I found a website with a discussion about what each of the days in the song means. According to Catholic tradition the song was a mnemonic device to teach the catechism to kids. While the meanings proposed by tradition may not be the real origin of the song, I really loved the ideas and wanted to share each day with you here. So, there will be a freebie each day representing the "gift" given on that day and a Christian explanation of that day.

So... A partridge in a pear tree refers to Jesus the Messiah being the ultimate gift and a protector of His people. The scripture reference to support this theory is Luke 13:34, "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered you under my wings, as a hen does her chicks, but you would not have it so . . . ."

Click here or the image above to download today's freebie.

a Christmas whim

a collaboration kit by the ahhhscrap design team.

1st Day of 1st Grade

Made with the Ahhh Scrap Collaboration Kit "Book Worm"

September Collab at Ahhh Scrap

Book Worm

a collaboration kit by Ahhh Scrap

September means back to school, which means - READING! The Book Worm Collaboration Kit is a fun way to document your favorite books and reading time with your kids. We grew up with this saying, "Read to your kids and one day they'll read back to you." We hope you enjoy the adventure of reading!

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Included in this kit are 60 papers, 3 alphas, and 89 elements, including printable bookmarks and name stickers, and awesome word art!

Vacation Sale

Ahhh Scrap Celebrates National Scrapbooking Day

Ahhh Scrap is celebrating National Scrapbooking Day with a week of deals! May 1, 2010: For ONE DAY ONLY snag the new collaboration kit, Strawberry Patch, for FREE when you purchase $10 or more from any designer! The new collab is fabulous! But that's not all! From May 1 to May 7, 2010 the entire Ahhh Scrap store is 30%! AND we have a whole week of freebies lined up for you! Today's freebie was put together by KD Designs and features the May Collab kit in a desktop background and fun blog wear. Click the graphic to snag this freebie, in store now!

Coming Soon @ Ahhh Scrap

Tutorial - Making a Repeating Pattern

I've been thoroughly enjoying learning the ins and outs of Adobe Illustrator these last few months, and the other day it dawned on me how to make a perfect repeating pattern! Of course I'm sure this has dawned on MANY designers already, but for those of you who may be beginners, I decided to write it up as a tutorial. This tutorial uses Adobe Illustrator, but I believe the principals are the same in Photoshop.

1. Choose the size of the repeat

Set up your document for the size you want the pattern. For this example the repeat is six inches, square, so that's how large the new document is. Turn on the grids and the rulers to help you line things up.

2. Create the pattern elements

Here I've created a simple "rose" from a circle and curves.

3. Size and Duplicate

Rotate and size the element before you duplicate it. That's important! Duplicate the element. You can go ahead and make a third copy now and move it over to the side if you will be using this same element again.

4. Line up on the Axis

Line up the first element on the bottom left axis (x: 0; y: 0)

5. Line up the second element

For this example we are doing the repeat on the left and right edges. So the second element goes on the right axis (x: 6; y: 0). If you are making the elements to go on the top and bottom edges then you would use the top left axis (x: 0; y: 6).

6. Group the Elements

7. Place them on the edge

Once they are grouped they are free to move around the edge. They will move together and wherever you let them rest they will make a perfect join when you save the pattern later.

8. Fill in the gaps!

Continue working the edges of the pattern and filling in the spaces in between. Be sure that if you place something on the edge it has the perfect match on the other side!

9. Save and create pattern

I save the pattern as a .png file to create an overlay later. If you use save for web mode make sure you change the image size! The default is pretty small. For this 6 inch pattern I save it at 1200 x 1200 pixels. Then I opened the pattern in Photoshop Elements, defined pattern (Edit, define pattern) then created a 12" paper and filled a layer with the pattern. Add texture, color, styles, etc. to create the design.

So much fun! This really makes a difference for me being comfortable making repeating patterns! I hope it helps you! If you found the tutorial useful please leave a comment, and better yet leave a link to something you made using the technique! Happy scrapping!

Mat Templates

Use mat templates for creating papers for your kits, or for clipping papers for your layouts. Use patterns, overlays, outlines, and styles to make your papers fun and creative!

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Included in this kit are 5 bracket mats, 3 scalloped circle mats, and 4 scalloped square mats, for a total of 12 mats.

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Layer styles and overlays not included. Commercial use ok.

Rainy Days

April showers bring May flowers, right? I sure hope so! This fun little mini kit is available at Ahhh Scrap for all your rainy day scrapbook pages!

Designer Call at Ahhh Scrap!

New Easter Products!

Two new products are now available in the Ahhh Scrap store, just in time for your Easter scrapbooking!

ON SALE NOW!

Spring Dreams | March Collaboration Kit

What do you think about when you dream about Spring? Birds chirping? Green things budding? The "Spring Dreams" collaboration kit is a collection of gorgeous papers and fun elements straight from the imagination of our fabulous design team! This kit is huge with 88 papers and 124 elements! There's a little something for everyone, including a few St.Patrick's Day items and Easter bunnies. No matter what hemisphere you're in, we know you will love how full of life this kit is! Click the image above to buy!

Looking for some creative inspiration? Check out these fun pages made by the Ahhh Scrap Team using the Spring Dreams Collaboration kit!

NEW! Flower Templates

New in the stores are these fun flower templates, another Illustrator creation! There are nine flower mats, nine accent lines, and one bonus button center. All the mats and lines are in separate files so they are easy to use.

At Ahhh Scrap

At Digi_ridoo Scraps

For some inspiration I created this layered flower sample:

I used four different flower mats. Each has a solid fill except for the third mat, which is a cardboard box layer style. The little wire coils were made with one of the accent lines and a chrome style. I put a crinkled paper overlay over the whole flower then used the burn tool to accent the crinkles, add strategic shadowing, and darken the edges of the petals. Then I added the button center and merged the whole flower.

These templates are so fun to use! Just let your creativity run wild and see what you come up with! I would love to see what you do!

Be My Valentine

I am absolutely in love with Adobe Illustrator! I can't stop making stuff! This morning we had snacks with the youth group and one of the moms brought the CUTEST plates! The graphic above is based on the plates, and is free for you to download! Just click on the picture above to download. The colors are from the monthly participation prize kit from Digi_ridoo Scraps. If you want the rest of the kit all you have to do is play along in the February Challenges. You'll find all the challenges and more in the Digi_ridoo Scraps Forum. Have fun, and Happy Valentine's Day!

And the Winner Is....

MONICA!

Congratulations Monica! You've won a $10 coupon to KD Designs!

Monica, send me an email to claim your prize!

kellysdigitaldesigns @ gmail . com (no spaces)

10,000 Hits!

KD Designs Blog has reached 10,000 hits! How exciting! In honor of this very momentous occasion, I'll be giving away a $10 gift certificate to my store for one random person! All you have to do to win is make a comment on this post! I'll be taking comments through Jan 16, and then will choose a winner on Jan 17. Check back on Monday to see if you're a winner!

NEW! Banner Maker Alpha

I was inspired by the silly Happy New Year's banner at our youth party the other night. I thought it would make a fun alpha... and so it did! The alpha set includes the upper case alphabet, numbers, two special characters, a spacer piece, and a set of ties to "hang" your banner across the page.

This alpha will be great for making banners for your New Year's pages, parties, baby showers, anniversaries, anything special event that you scrap!

Pick it up here at Ahhh Scrap.