LOVE Hearts have been given to lovers, friends and sweeties for 60 years, but not with these messages.

To commemorate the anniversary of the iconic sweets, makers Swizzels set out looking for new messages to adorn their coloured candies.

Emma Short, of Bewdley, entered the unique competition when she fell pregnant after suffering fertility issues with the entry "MIRACLES HAPPEN".

She said: “I entered the competition about six weeks before our daughter was born. I think it was around 2am, I had a horrific pregnancy and couldn’t sleep, so I did the usual trick when bored, scour Facebook. I was interested in entering as I love Love Hearts and I thought my chosen message stood a real chance.

“Sienna literally was a miracle when she was conceived. Prior to her being born, I had suffered four miscarriages over a ten year period and had also been diagnosed with polycystic ovaries, which greatly reduced my chance of conceiving.

“Following extensive tests at Worcestershire Hospital, I was told in October 2013, that I would need medication to improve my chances. I was also told that if that did not work after six months, I would then require IVF treatment. To say we were heartbroken was an understatement.

“About two weeks after the visit I started to feel quite unwell and I was signed off work with exhaustion. We went on holiday in the November for some rest and I gradually started to feel worse. A week after we got back I was still feeling bad so I got the cheapest pregnancy test possible as I didn’t believe it would be positive.

“I stood in utter disbelief when it showed up positive. My husband thought I was joking and made me go to the pharmacy to get an expensive branded one just to confirm.

“After a horrible pregnancy which gave me morning sickness for 26 weeks, our little miracle Sienna Louise was born on Thursday, July 24, 2014. She is now six months old, we could not have wished for a more perfect daughter.”

Sweet victory was hers when she beat off thousands of other entrants to become one of 14 winning entries.

Her sweet message will now be manufactured and join classic comments and other new ones in packets sold in stores. She was given a VIP tour of the factory, in Derby, to see her sweet going into production with the other more than 150 classic messages which have been printed on the sweets for 60 years.

Mrs Short added: “I was really surprised to find out I had won, as I got a letter in the post in October and had forgotten all about it. When it said I had won, I had to contact them immediately as I thought it was a wind up. You can imagine my delight when I found out I had won a tour of the factory which isn’t open to the public, an overnight stay in a top hotel, travel expenses paid, £100 spending money and an enormous sweet hamper.

“Unfortunately my daughter was too young for the factory tour in her memory box we have the first sweets off the production line with her message on and the card displaying her message is also on her playroom wall.”

“Swizzels were the perfect hosts and I thoroughly enjoyed the day. It was refreshing to see so much produced traditionally instead of robots and machines.”

Jeremy Dee, managing director at Swizzels said: “We had thousands of great entries and it was really tough narrowing them down to just 14. We had lots of fun reading through all the entries and would like to thank everyone who entered.

"It is very rare for us to change the messages on the Love Hearts but we felt that this was a great way to mark the special occasion.

"We had a great day welcoming Emma and the rest of the winners to the factory and getting their Love Hearts into production.”

Other winning messages included modern and current phrases. For those who use video messenger Skype, there's now a "SKYPE ME", selfie addicts can have "TAKE A SELFIE", for tweeters there's "TWEET ME", and for users of dating app Tinder they can "SWIPE RIGHT" to say they like a person.

There was also winning regional messages "ALREET PET" and "CWTCH ME", which is the well-known welsh phrase meaning "hug me".

One romantic winner selected "MARRY ME?" message to encourage more Love Heart-based proposals.