Sunday 24 May 2015

Whoopsies! Remembering I have a blog!

Oh dearie me.....what have I been doing and where have I been?  I have an adorable little granddaughter that I am almost full time baby sitting for which leaves me little and sometimes no time to be creative!  But I have still been working away on small pieces here and there and I may well do another blog very shortly to show my work off. In the meantime I am busy trying to promote myself on the various social networks when I am not babysitting!....So recently it was my twins birthday and they have a favourite food dish called stuffed cabbage aka whoopsies. It is Polish in origin....but my Italian mum was taught it from a Polish lady to make for my Polish dad. Mum used to make it on special occasions along with the help of my older sister. I often watched on and sometimes did help with the rolling up of the cabbages once the stuffing was put in but I rarely did any of the preparation work.  As some of you may know mum and dad are no longer with us and in the short time we haven't had mum, my sister has made this dish a couple of times but this time I felt I really wanted to create it for my twins birthday all by myself.  Well it was successful and I posted a picture of it on facebook and there were one or two enquiries for the recipe.  So what follows is the recipe for them....for myself so I don't forget how to create it and hopefully a future reference for my children in case there comes a time they want to try the recipe out for themselves.
250grams of mince
For this recipe I used 2 boil in the bag rice @ 62.5 grams and a packet of Express microwave rice or you can just use more quantities of the boil in the bag type
White cabbage large as you can get
half a smoke sausage (Mattesons)
1 pepperami sausage
2 slices of bacon
1 large onion
bay leaf
fennel seeds
vinegar
egg
olive oil for frying
oxo cubes or bovril cubes or bisto
salt and pepper

Pop your whole white cabbage in a pot big enough that when you pour cold water into it that it will cover the cabbage or near enough cover it.....what you are doing is to try and boil the cabbage leaves to loosen it off the cabbage. Once the water has come to the boil in your cabbage pot you can start the preparations for the stuffing. If necessary rotate your cabbage to make sure all of it is getting boiled and top up the pot with boiled water from the kettle to keep the cabbage leaves covered.
Boil your rice as per instructions and/or microwave the express packet
Next chop your onion, bacon, pepperami and smoked sausage (all quantities can be increased if making more than 12 whoopsies). Gently fry the onion until soft, not brown or burnt and add the bacon, smoked sausage and pepperami, continue to fry until bacon is cooked. Add fennel seeds and a bay leaf.  You can crush the bay leaf if you use the dried version.  You should be able to smell the fennel seed in the cooking but you don't want it to be over powering.
Next get a large mixing bowl. Into the mixing bowl put in your raw mince and add the cooked rice and the mixture of onion, sausage and bacon.  At this point you need to add a good sprinkling of the vinegar to the mixture as you are mixing raw mince to cooked food also add your salt and pepper and either one or two oxo or bovril cubes or bisto for colouring. Mix all these ingredients up together.  There needs to be an even mix of rice to mince in the bowl peppered with all your other ingredients.
Beat an egg and add to the mixture.
Hopefully by this time your cabbage may be ready to give up its leaves one at a time.  Take a fork and gently tease the edge of a cabbage leaf away from the rest of the cabbage. You want to take the leaf off whole. You may need to use a knife to separate the leaf at the base of the cabbage by cutting away the leaf at the base.  Place the loosened cabbage leaf onto a plate and continue to allow the cabbage to boil a few minutes more in between removing each leaf until you have maybe 4 of leaves to start working with. Allow the cabbage to continue to boil will you start to stuff the first few cabbage leaves.  Using a large spoon, scoop the mixture into the base of the leaf and roll it into a parcel....it should be the size of a clenched fist and then place the parcel into a flat casserole dish. Continue to do this until all the mixture is used up and there are no longer leaves of cabbage large enough to make parcels with. Worst case scenario if you still have mixture left but not big enough leaves to wrap them with then use two leaves by overlapping them.
Once you have used all the mixture up cover the whoopsies with extra cabbage leaves to help prevent burning, also cover with kitchen foil and place in the oven for one hour at 200 degrees celcius/gas mark 6.
Once cooked ....enjoy :)

Sunday 21 December 2014

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

Sunday 31 August 2014

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.
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 
or on my website 
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.


Friday 20 June 2014

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.


Monday 23 September 2013

Birthday Offer!

Only a week late...I am sooo sorry for that. My next birthday offer is to reflect my 50 years of age!  If you would like to place an order for any tiara or jewellery set you can buy a second one at half price (the cheapest item is the half price).
Pop over to my website to choose your  favourite tiara or jewellery set http://www.dizatiaras.co.uk
This offer ends 30th September 2013

Monday 2 September 2013

Birthday Month

This month is dizaTIARAS birthday and my birthday.  I am going to be 50...wow half a century....I still feel like I am 21 but my body tells me I'm not especially first thing in the morning getting out of bed.  I also find that I now have to wear my glasses all of the time when working with beads and crystals or while I am on my computer, and as for reading my mobile text messages....well I am glad to say they are good glasses!  Anyway to celebrate I am offering two offers. One which started on 1st September until 15th September 2013. Place an order during this time and I will give you 15% off your total order and a free pair of earrings to say thank you.  My second offer.....well come back here on 16th September to find out!
To place an order all you have to do is go to my website at www.dizatiaras.co.uk or by making an appointment to see me on 07754763226, I am also attending a wedding fayre at Grangemouth Town Hall on Sunday 15th between 12noon to 4pm

Thursday 3 January 2013

Happy New Year from dizaTIARAS

I hope 2013 brings everyone all they wish and hope for.  I cant believe its almost 18 months since I last wrote in my blog.  My duty as a carer has kept me too busy to update my blog and for that matter to even update my website. But I am still here and I am still creating and I have very many happy brides and customers.  These days you will find me on facebook.  Yes, I have got caught up and probably slightly addicted to social networking site.  I think its because it is easier to to say what is on your mind in a very short statement.  Blogs are much more work and require a lot more thought.  Its probably one reason why I never had a diary growing up.  Diary....whats a diary I hear you ask?  Its where you wrote down all your thoughts and dreams and wishes long before Blogs were ever invented....oh and they were personal....you would never publish it for any Tom Dick or Harry to read. I have slightly cheated as well as I have linked my facebook page to my Twitter account so that when ever I post on Facebook it appears on Twitter also.
Ok so what have I been creating in the last 18 months.....mmmmm well I have created quite a few I just hope I can remember what ones they are.
My newest tiara still to be named

Alice so called because it was for a wedding with Alice in Wonderland theme

Jennifer This is a combination of Grace tiara and Crystal tiara

Kara This is the original design for Karen but the bride wanted it to look more irregular

The revised Kara design called Karen

Lee This is my Grecian themed tiara

Siobhan designed for my daughters friend who was married in 2012

Tiffany so called because it is a top hat. This was also meant for the Alice in Wonderland themed wedding


There have also been new combs and jewellery as well but I think this is enough photos for one blog post.  But if you are too impatient to wait on my next blog post pop over to facebook where I add my new work more often. https://www.facebook.com/dizaTIARASbyDiana