In 1998, she completed a master's degree in Philosophy majoring in Art History at Auckland University Daly was born in Wellington in 1965.
[2] Art historians Damian Skinner and Kevin Murray give Daly as an example of one of the early jewellers to emerge from new tertiary courses in their 2014 history of contemporary jewellery in New Zealand and Australia.
"[4] Her early work included icons of the Madonna, presented in brooches and pendants, in materials from gold-leaf to paper collages.
[4] She creates beaded and embroidered surfaces recalling religious garments and church adornments, and has used angel, heart, skull and wing motifs.
[4] Her work was included in Open Heart (1993–94), Same but Different (1996) and Grammar: Subjects and Objects (2001), respectively the first, second and fourth biennial exhibitions of contemporary New Zealand jewellery organised by The Dowse Art Museum and Talking to me: Collecting and making at Objectspace in 2010.