THE makers of Love Hearts sweets have given the traditional treats a modern makeover – with the help of a Blackburn teen.

Westholme pupil Emily Heyes, 13, was chosen by British sweet makers Swizzels as one of the winners of its once-in-a-lifetime competition to celebrate the 60th anniversary of its most iconic sweets.

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Emily, from Feniscowles, entered the unique competition that which saw thousands of hopefuls create and submit their own Love Hearts message to be in with a chance of seeing their own Love Hearts in production at the Derbyshire-based Swizzels factory.

Emily’s winning entry was ‘“think pink’” to raise awareness of cancer and cancer research.

She said: “I chose ‘think pink’ to help raise awareness of cancer and cancer research.

“I wanted to make people think about it and I thought putting it on Love Hearts was a nice way to do that.”

Other winning messages include modern and current phrases such as, ‘“Skype me”’, ‘“take a selfie”’, ‘“tweet me”’, ‘“swipe right”’, ‘“totes hilar”’ and ‘“yolo”’, an abbreviation of ‘“you only live once”’.

There were also winning regional dialect messages “‘alreet pet’” and ‘“cwtch me”’, which is the well-known Welsh phrase meaning ‘“hug me”’. One romantic winner selected a ‘“marry me?”’ message to encourage more Love Heart-based proposals.

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 Emily and the rest of the winners to the factory and getting their Love Hearts into production.”

Swizzels also provided the winners with a VIP factory tourvg where they saw their very own unique messages printed onto Love Hearts.

The 14 new messages are now being sold in stores around the UK.