The Lady of the Mine

Yesterday it was time for a very special tour of the Falun Mine. In December we auctioned out a "ghost tour" of the mine for charity. We normally don't offer tours like that so this was a one of a kind thing. I of course loved to take part, and made sure that I got to play The Lady of the Mine. Most mines, at least in Sweden, have a Lady living there. She's the spirit that controls everything, the treasure is her treasure and she can give and take it away. She can also warn miners of any dangers, as long as they respect her rules. The most common descriptions of the this Lady describes her as a very beautiful woman, dressed in expensive clothes, like a real queen. Usually when people portray her they dress her simply in white flowing robes, well I wanted something else. I love the descriptions were she is describes with "skirts that swosh by and jewels that bangs", or as one person say "like a jingling gypsy woman".

The dress that I wore is actually an old ballgown that I made, with inspiration from the mine. The ball gown has a really nice skirt, but the bodice was a disaster so I donated it to the "dress out" wardrobe at the mine some time ago. I think I was the first one to use it though. Then I tried to find as many big necklaces and bracelets I could find, and finally I used my gold leave tiara. The veil are a couple of meters of gold poly organza, I have bought it to use as interlining for the gold handmaiden but I calculated that I had enough to be able to use a piece of it for this.

Hmm, I asked that someone could take a picture from the back to show the tail that I had made, but it was apparently invisible.

It's also fun to go heavy on the make up. I used a coat of white face paint as a base layer and then coppertoned eyeshadow on the cheekcs, the eyes were done very heavily with copper/green/blue glittery eyegels, and then some very red lips.

I would have loved to see what I looked like when I stood in the darkness with an oil lamp in my hand, one person said that the oil lamp was invisible so that they thought I had the fire in my hand.