Horse shoe challenge

One of my previous customers (Amanda) challenged me to create a horse shoe for her little girl to give to a friend as a wedding gift. When she came to me in 2007 to make her a tiara she spotted a comb that I had and asked if it could be made into a tiara then she added her own unique idea by changing the paper flowers in the comb to crystal flowers. The tiara was called Amanda Jane

Here is a picture of Amanda wearing her tiara. She looked stunning!

Any way she wanted a keep sake for her friends wedding and decided that she didn't want to give one of those plastic horse shoes easily bought in the card shops. With just the following information, something small, something classy, swarovski crystals, butterfly, lilac/purple colour and a budget could I help her out. Well its always nice to be challenged creatively so I rose to it and below is the result.

A very Special Offer

I have 3 combs and a tiara all made up using clear swarovski crystals and the tiara has some swarovski pearls on the tiara base. Comb 11 normally sells at £25 but as they are already made up and cannot be customised I am selling them at £20 each. The Tiara Enza normally sells at £60 but again as it is already made up and cannot be customised or changed in any way I am selling it at £50. These prices do not include postage and packaging. They are suitable for brides, bridesmaids, first communion and gala days.
To view these items please visit my page on Facebook by clicking the button on the top left hand of the blog. To purchase them please contact me via email diana@dizatiaras.co.uk

A very seasonal hobby business

I must apologise to all you people who are in business for a living to make ends meet. I always post that my business is a hobby. The reasons my business is a hobby are that 1. I am a part time carer for my mum. Part time as my sister is the one responsible for her day to day care but unfortunately she does not drive. This is where I come in. I drive mum to all her doctor and hospital appointments and I do all her shopping. I also pop along in the evening to make sure she gets her supper. 2. Because I am a carer I don't have a great deal of time to put into my business to move it forward from being just a hobby to a full time career. 3. The wedding business is a very seasonal business! But this last month (February) things kind of took off again. A little later than it has done in previous years but none the less it got busy. I was delighted to be invited by the mums of the girls in the Grangemouth Gala Day 2010 along to a meeting for them to choose one of my tiaras. Then I got a phone call from the Gala Day Queens mum for a tiara and finally the Maids of Honour mums contacted me. In between that I took a few internet orders and several other appointments and I am wondering why am I sitting here blogging about when I should be working?
The answer I think to that has to be that I am just feeling so fortunate that people like my work enough to come to me. But the best bit is always return customers or customer referrals, which I have had quite a few of this month also. This week though my mobile phone has gone quiet. I believe I have had my wee spurt of business and that I may have to wait a few weeks more before I get anymore appointments. That's the thing about the wedding business. It never seems to be consistent. I have another couple of wedding fairs coming up and I know I will get either one or two orders from them or appointments but in the meantime I better get on with the few remaining orders I have left. If I clear my feet then I can be creative and make some new stuff like the Celeste tiara and necklaces.


My other half works in Parcel Force, so his wages pays the household bills but unfortunately he does not earn enough for special treats or holidays. My hobby business allows me to make a few extra pounds so that I can treat my teenagers occasionally, and hopefully I can save enough so that me and my hubby can have a little break somewhere to celebrate our 25th Silver Wedding anniversary this summer.

Two recent makes

I am in the middle of trying to renew some of my designs by either remaking them or creating new designs. The first 2 were originally made using fashion, bugle and seed beads and below them are the same side tiaras made up using swarovski crystals, bugle and seed beads.

Here are the designs using the better quality materials.

Then I have been busy making some new designs.
The first was inspired by my hugely popular Elaine tiara and equally liked Stella tiara.
The new design is called Celeste as I think it looks like a star burst and shooting star in one design. To me Celeste means heavenly and that is where we find the stars, heaven wards.
The second design is a solid band of flowers. The crystal pearls have been wired together to form daisy type flowers. I though about calling it Daisy but as there were so many packed together I thought it looked more like a blossom of flowers. Hence the name Blossom. Blossom can be customised by so many different colours I think it will be a great hair accessory to any outfit.

Then and Now

Creativity fascinates me, be it tiaras, jewellery, wall papering and decorating, photography or website creation. I list these specifically as I have dabbled in them all. I have been running my little hobby business now for almost 5 years and tinkering with designs for almost 6 years. I was looking at some old photographes of some of my original designs and I was gobsmacked at how far I have come and how much I have taught myself. Some of the original designs are interesting and possibly sometime in the future I may revive them and bring them more up to date. I used simple fashion beads in their creation and ready made components. Now I use swarovski crystals and pearls and make up all my own components...I even rewire diamantes if I am requested to use them in any of my designs. The images that follow are some of the first tiaras I made.

THEN

It is a far cry from what I am designing these days. I think the one that would make up the best in swarovski crystals is the fourth design and some day I may just do that!

NOW

Wedding Exhibitions

Just a quick short blog as I have to run out the door. Shopping to do, hubby to get out to work and sadly a funeral to attend.
I am going to be busy over the next month and half on Sunday's doing wedding exhibitions at various local hotels. So if you live in Falkirk District or Central Scotland and are getting married and looking for tiaras and jewellery then why not visit me at those wedding fayres. For all the information, dates and times please visit my website and see the new page I have created specially to advertise these wedding exhibitions. See HERE for details.
Happy wedding day shopping!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. I hope 2010 is a good one for everyone. I have no new year resolutions but I decided to stop using Twitter. So my apologies to you if you were following me there. I have decided to try and use my blog a bit more. Mainly because I felt restricted by the number of characters you could use on twitter. I don't ever have very much to say but I found that when I did have something to say, I could never quite say it in the 140 characters that were allowed. I also found that some poeple were obsessed with getting people to follow them and I found myself following people that had nothing in common with me and said things I had no interest in.
I also did a wee change my tiara website. I removed the colour strip down the side off the page. Seems a bit insignificant but I felt the colour strip made the website look amateurish. Which of course it probably still does as like my tiaras the website is home and hand made. I am quite proud of it as I have never had any formal tuition on website building. My first ever website was for my local parish and I am in the middle of a fourth redesign for the church. I actually like this website the best and that is why I was prompted to make the slight change to my tiara website. The church website can be seen here
I also did a small 3 page website for my local florist. She had a website domain for years but had not been successful in getting the website set up. So I took it as a challenge to create one for her. Her shop colours are pink and black, so I took this to the website. I felt that the colour was too similar to my own so that is why I removed my coloured sidebar.
Any way enough about my computer skills. "Have you created anything new Diana" I hear you all shouting at the computer screen. Of course I am hoping you haven't got bored and stopped reading by now! Ok Just before Christmas I had a young lady who was looking for a thin hair band with some ornate wire work. I showed her Alison and Carmela but she liked the idea of the tiara being thin like Dawn and Dawn 1. So basically she gave me free reign to create her a new style. I love brides like that! Any way here is the tiara and I named it after her Sarah.

I just remembered that I also made a comb from the hairband that I made for myself for my nieces wedding in October, for a mother of the groom, and it turned out lovely. It is from the Olivia side tiaras.