The finished shaker box

[wiseheart]

This will be my last Christmas box for a while - it has been half-done for quite some time but today I finally got around to finish it.

The outside (the round stickers on the outer panels aren't visible, but they aren't all that interesting, either):



The inside:



And a closer look at the little Christmas tree (actually a pine cone) in the middle. I painted it green, then added white edges and some green and silver glitter and even managed to fasten to the middle of the box - hopefully, it will last:




My all-time favourite student decided to enter a convent. She's leaving for the novitiate in Rome within the next fortnight. I knew she had considered becoming a nun an one time - she told me because I used to be one, too - but I thought she'd given up the idea. Well, it will be an interesting, hard and wonderful time for her, complete with culture shock (I think today's youth might have it even harder than my generation had), but I hope it will work out for her. One of us ought to get her heart's desire.

I rewrote a few paragraphs of a finished "Mazarbul" chapter partially, but I'm afraid it still isn't enough; might have to ask my wonderful beta, lindahoyland about it. I also wrote almost 3 pages for the next chapter, so I'm well content with my progress.

Of course, this means that I'll have to type up an ungodly amount of stuff tomorrow, but everything has its price.

Comments

[ghost-light.livejournal.com]

That is so beautiful!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm very pleased how it turned out. Now if only the glue would hold...

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Is that the pinecone you recently picked up? What a great little 'tree' it makes. :D Incredible, as always.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yep, it is the one. :)

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

It's beautiful.

I hope your student finds fulfillment in her calling.

I'm sorry I've not yet got round to your chapter. We are forecast cooler weather next week so maybe my brain will work again.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Oh, no problems at all! I still haven't completely rewritten the parts that weren't actually mine in the chapter you've already corrected, so we won't miss our train, as we say over here.

I have high hopes for my student, too; to find her fulfillment, or if it turns out that it wouldn't be her way, after all, not to have such a hard time to accept it as I had.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

The pinecone is a great idea!

A chum of mine went to (I think) the only Church of England convent in the UK. She liked it, but decided she wanted to taste life outside before she committed from novice to nun. She ended up getting married and having 2 children, so the nun idea has been put on hold!
I always regret not going to visit her at the convent, I would have been turning up on a huge black and silver motorbike, dressed in full leathers and green hair. They'd not have minded, but it would have been such incongruous fun!

What was your story if I may ask?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Sure, it isn't a secret or whatnot. At the age of 17, I decided that becoming a nun was my calling. Mum wasn't happy, of course. So I kept looking in secret. Since at the time only one single convent was allowed to function in Hungary - and since I didn't want to join some underground organization and live in fear for the rest of my life, as it seemed back then - it took me 12 years until I found what seemed the right place for me. It was a missionary congregation in Germany, just the right mix of semi-monastic and open to the world.

I left my homeland without saying a word to anyone but a few chosen friends. Lived over two years in different houses of the congregation before it became clear that while I could very well adapt to their way of life, German mindset just wasn't doable for me. Which is funny, since we have quite a lot of German blood in the family, but there are great differences. So, in the end I gave up on my calling and came home with my tail between my hind legs. It took me another couple of years and much searching - even a short time in a Benedictine convent in Austria - until I finally had to admit that it won't work. It was the hardest thing in my whole life. I've accepted it by now, but from time to time it still hurts.