Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2015

I would just like to wish all my customers from the past, present customers and to anyone in the future who is thinking of purchasing any of my creations, a very merry Christmas and my very best wishes for 2015

dizaTIARAS 10th Birthday!

Happy birthday dizaTIARAS.  I can't believe its been 10 years since my niece and my sister's belief in my creativity coaxed me into starting up this wee business. The most satisfying part of this business is and always has been when a bride send's me her photo of herself on her wedding day showing off my work either in their hair or wearing it around their neck, ears and wrist. And of course, I love receiving hand written cards, letters and emails of thanks. Its a lovely feeling knowing that I have helped complete their wedding look with my tiaras and wedding jewellery.
Almost 20 years ago I did a 2 year course in floristry but had been unable to complete the course because of my family commitments. So that I didn't lose what I had learned I joined a floral art club and I was delighted to get the odd first, second and third places in my entries to local horticultural events.  I also used what I had learned to help create floral garlands for a childrens galaday in 1994 as another niece at that time was chosen as galaday queen!

It was 10 years ago when I was with my niece Tina and sister Zena wandering round a huge wedding fayre, being confused by all that was on offer for a bride and groom on their wedding day. At that time I was still a full time mum and I was helping my sister to look after my mum who was not terribly well. Anyway while wandering around the stalls for tiaras we were shocked at how much the businesses were charging for the tiaras.  Both my niece and sister were telling me that with my ability to use wires in floristry I could surley use it with crystals and beads to create a tiara. Well after much persuasion I decided to give it a try. With trial and error using just glass beads I practiced various wiring techniques and I finally worked up the courage to use the more expensive materials called swarovski beads and created this tiara for my niece.

 This tiara is called Clementina, my nieces full name.

I enjoyed making this so much I decided to start up my business and decided on a name that was personal to me. I could have called it Tiaras By Diana or Diana Tiaras or Handmade Tiaras by Diana but I wanted to incorporate something from my heritage. My mum was Italian and my dad was Polish. Unfortunately mum didn't give me an Italian name....I was named after my sisters favourite childrens magazine Diana. So the next best thing I could think of was to incorporate my Polish surname. 

Diza is basically the first 2 letters from my first name Diana and the first 2 letters from my Polish maiden name Zak.  I also decided to google the name Diza and discovered that is was a female Hebrew name meaning Joy

If you have read this far, then welldone as I will be creating a competiton around the information in the last 2 paragraphs. Keep watching out for the details on my facebook page.

www.facebook.com/dizaTIARASbyDiana

Anyway I would like to share a few photo graphs of my niece and her bridesmaids on her wedding day. The bridesmaids were my other niece Maria (her sister) my daughter Francesca and my niece's sister in law (grooms sister) Emma

 Tina wearing Clementina tiara and Maria wearing a tiara called Marsia

 Francesca, Maria and Emma wearing Marsia tiara

 George(dad) Zena(mum &sister) Craig(groom) Tina(niece & bride)

 Andrew, Tina, Craig and Me

This is what I was wearing in my hair that day. I called it Ariel as it reminded me of waves at sea.

Anyway Tina and Craig recently celebrated 9 years of marriage. Craig and Tina are High School teachers, Tina teaching English and Craig teaching Biology. They have three gorgeous boys called Patrick, Matthew and Michael.  Here are some photos of them.

Over the years I have had many letters of thanks and photos sent to me and I have met some lovely girls who I am friends with on Facebook, I have also made some friends from all over the country of brides who have purchased my tiaras and jewellery. I hope that I can continue to create lovely pieces and be able to share my brides pictures with you all for at least the next 10 years. If you wish to see some of my happy brides they can be found in an album on my facebook page called 

Happy Customers

or on my website 

Gallery Page

or on You Tube. This is a 6 and half minute video showing my brides and then the stye of tiara they chose to wear on their day.

My Brides & More

Grangemouth Gala Day

History (the short version) of the Grangemouth Galaday!
In 1906 Canon Birnie at a meeting of the Council suggested a Children's Day. The proposal was accepted. A collection was made and the first Children's Day was held on a Friday in August. The procession took them to the Kerse House where Lord Dundas had given permission for the grounds to be used. 2000 children took part in that very first Childrens day.
It was such a success that everyone wanted it to continue but at the meeting for the second Children's Day some men asked if the procession could be on the Saturday so that they too could watch it and so it has right up to the present apart from the war years. They also decided to change the month to June and the route of the march to the Zetland Public Park.
My first association with the Grangemouth Galaday, apart from when I was a child and I sometimes marched in the parade and sometimes I didnt (its a very long walk if you don't like walking at the best of times).... came in 1994 when my cousin's daughter was chosen to be the galaday queen.  At the time I was at studying floristry at a part time course in Clackmannanshire.  I offered to make a comb for my niece to wear. At the time, the big film was The Neverending Story which inspired my idea, so with the help of my other niece Tina (who was more into bead work than myself) we created this lovely headpiece for Debbie to wear. I didn't get a photo of the back but it was full of lovely white silk flowers attached to a comb which went into the back of her head and the beadwork came round to the front

And of course using my floral skills I created florall headdresses for the rest of the retinue. One of the 2 occasions I created headpieces for the entire retinue. I dont remember if I did the flowergirl's headpiece...in fact I think I have only ever done the head piece for one flower girl!

The next time I was asked to help complete the galaday outfits were in 2006, the 100 year anniversary.  Unfortuneately I didnt get a brochure that year, something I truely regret as it has been nice keeping a record of what I have done.  But I am happy to say that one of the mums was very kind and sent me a lovely photo of her daughter who was one of the Maids of Honour in the 2006 galaday. Her name was Anthea. She is wearing the Alina tiara. Anthea went to Sacred Heart primary school.

After that I was truely blessed and I created tiaras for the retinues for the 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and again this year 2014.  The only other year I made tiaras for the entire retinue was in 2010.The 2007 retinue came from the Moray primary School and they wore Stephanie1 Again I didn't do the flowergirls tiara :(

The 2008 retinue came from Bowhouse Primary school and they wore the tiara called Estelle and the flower girl wore the same as the rest of the retinue! :)

The 2009 galaday retinue came from Beancross Primary school and they wore a tiara called Natalie.

 2010 Galaday

 The 2010 galaday retinue came for Sacred Heart Primary school again. This year I created Enza tiara for the Queen elect Emily Ritchie and for the Maids of Honour I made Leslie tiaras and for the Lady in waitings I made the original design of Stephanie.

The last 3 years have seen the galaday retinues go else where for their tiaras but I am delighted to say the once again the ladys in waiting for the Sacred Heart Primary school came back to me again and this year I created little tiara combs for them.  Here they are ....

And here is the comb....

Over the years I have also had the occasion to make tiaras for pupils attending the Bo'ness fair day and Linlithgow galadays and there was one year were I did all the girls for the Queen elect school in Bo'ness but again I was unable to locate a brochure as a keepsake.