Adinkra: Faith Hope Love

AKOMA! J and M's Wedding
(Click the image to get a closeup view of this layout.
You MAY be glad you did!)

This layout uses my new Adinkra: Faith Hope Love kit, with a special add of Bunny Cates' "Cliporia". The journaling on the sticky reads,

"AKOMA. J is my nephew, M, his lovely bride, and now mother to a lively 15 month old princess. They told me the wonderful story of their meeting, how Christ-led, how divinely-ordered. They waited in hope for each other and found the greatest of these: love!"

The picture on the clipboard is, of course, the wedding party, minus at least one person: Mother-of-the-groom, my sister. The lad whose head is circled is her other son, who is the spitting image of my sister! If you look back on the blog, you'll find a picture of the three of us, my siblings and me, when we were children, taken at Jones Beach. There is a family resemblance, definitely.

Adinkra: Faith Hope Love kit (freebie!)
(Click the image to get a closeup view of this layout.
You MAY be glad you did!)

This kit was inspired by the December Color Challenge at Digital-Scrapbooking dot org. Every time my African friends travel "home" and back, they bring back a little bit of home, which i often use in quilting project gifts for them. I had just pulled out my adinkra stamps, wondering what i could do with them this year, and the colors and the stamps and my brain made a connection. Didn't hurt that i had also just picked up Kim Broedelet's African Sunsets and J Kuoha's Ivory Coast (which i'm told is where my family originated): African, colors, adinkra, et voila! Not to mention that we are in this season, that, for some of us, is deeply rooted in faith hope and, yes, the greatest of these, love. And IF you've been wondering where i was, well, now you know!

This kit contains (all downloads at 300 dpi) :

15 12x12 inch papers
17 adinkra and animal stickers
5 paperclips
8 brads and other fasteners
4 stickpins, 1 with holes and shading
one flower
7 ribbons and 5 knots
one frame
one metal cluster
engraved stickynotes in 6 colors
1 bookplate
1 shaker with adinkra gems
2 animal embellishments
1 Love!!! wordart
3 alphas (uppercase, lowercase, digits, punctuation) built on the free font "Albert"

This kit only looks at a few of the Adinkra Philosophical Writing System symbols. Cornell University has done a lot of research as have many others. You can get more information at these websites:

Cornell University (click links just under each symbol to get the brief explanation of the symbol; click links below the table of symbols to see some of the research on African Writing Systems)

For more information on Adinkra symbols and their history, check out Jean MacDonald's research, "West African Wisdom":

The Adinkra pattern-maker game at the World Museum of Liverpool was not only delightfully fun, but also inspired 2 of my papers. The World Museum also offered more information about adinkra stamps on their site.

Finally, the dddesign site has a rollover quick reference for adinkra symbols. It was on this page that i also found a link for the adinkra font, which enabled a much broader direction for the kit (only had 30 stamps in my possession.)


I am learning so much, but i can see that i am going to have to learn how to do mini kits! You know, the "less is more" philosophy? Now there's a New Year's resolution for you!

You can pick up the kit by clicking on the Faith Hope Love (FHL) links below:

Faith Hope Love Papers Set 1
Faith Hope Love Papers Set 2
Faith Hope Love Papers Set 3
Faith Hope Love Alphas
Faith Hope Love Elements


Designer Resources for this kit are courtesy of MegaDoodle (stickynotes), ScrapNTag (satin ribbon), and Scrapgirl (pins and clips) of Ephemeral Victorian; Sandra Adamson of SeaScraps; and KimBroedelet (Bits and Bobs). Some items created from: Tracy King's Mini Kit in a Box PSCS2 action (frame, flower, woven ribbons, monochromatic brads); Colleen Shibley's Element Templates (shaker); Catharina Oelting's folded paper action for PSCS2 (preview) and Monica Larsen's sloppy knot action. Special thanks to Atomic Cupcake.