A 22-year-old woman who sells funky earrings with eye-catching designs has made it to a national final and her work will also be on show at the Bolton Food and Drink Festival.

Grace Collard runs Grace Makes, a funky earrings business in Horwich.

Designs include coffins, gummy bears, snakes, Taylor Swift, deck cards, cowboy hats and other "weird" designs.

Grace, who made it through to the national finals of the Youth Trade Market, will showcase all her whacky designs on August 23 to 24 the same time she usually is at the food and drink festival.

But instead of missing out, her mum will run a stall at the food festival while Grace is in Stratford-Upon-Avon for the final.

She said: “I have gotten through to the finals before, but I want to do it.

“My hotel is booked, and I am making stock, obviously I am little stressed.

“I was not expecting it and was mid-serving when they called my name because I have not been able to go for so many years and there were so many people in the arts and craft category, and they can only pick a few.

“I am chuffed.”

Grace was aged 13 when she started dabbling in making chokers and prints, then started a stall at Bolton Market while at college.

But it wasn’t until in lockdown that Grace started doing gummy bear earrings and ducks, after which she says the online sales "blew up". 

Grace said: “In 2021, markets opened back up and had spray-painted wooden boxes and started with my galaxy theme.

“Now I am doing a market every week and it has become my full-time job while on gap year.”

Grace studied drama and contemporary performance for her undergraduate degree at MMU and has accepted her place for social work at the University of Salford.

She said: “The business will always be a priority for me, and people support me and come and find me for the earrings and it makes me happy when people do that.

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“A lot of it is requests from people and I will do it.

“I do the designs all on shrinky paper before I design it on Canva and print it, cut, shrink it down which hardens it and then put resin on it.”

Grace said that everywhere she goes has a different ‘favourite’, and for Bolton this is whatever is new.

She said: “Warrington love the gothic stuff, but at Bolton because it’s a main place they just want whatever is new, while Manchester wants weird things like whistles."