An Auckland jewellery designer has gone viral for her handmade earrings, which have been seen by millions online.
Joy's passion for jewellery-making began during lockdown to keep herself busy.
"Basically, me trying to distract myself from thinking about what was happening to me," she said. "I started an Instagram account, and I just started posting photos of my work just for fun.
"People, I guess, really liked it and then orders started coming in through Instagram, and people wanted to buy things."
She soon garnered 100,000 followers, with orders from all over the world for her intricate and detailed food creations. Joy told Seven Sharp that foods that bring a sense of nostalgia to people and the ones she enjoys are her source of inspiration.
"Most of my ideas come from — simply from foods that I love and foods that bring people nostalgia, to give them a sense of their childhood."
One such snack, a bagged sandwich, got eight million views on Instagram.
"Bagged sandwich earrings, kind of like what you have for lunch and yeah, that got over eight million views on Instagram, so it went a little bit viral," Joy said.
Making earrings are no piece of cake, though, with some pieces taking her more than two hours to complete: "I would say 30 to 40 minutes would be the minimum, and then it can go all the way up to two plus hours, depending on what it is," she said.
"That's not accounting for baking time, glazing time, waiting for the glaze to dry and then assembling the actual earrings and then packaging them and then photographing them and sending them off," she said.
The process is worth it for Joy when she knows her jewellery brings people happiness.
"That's probably one of the main reasons I enjoy doing this because I mainly love the smiles on people's faces when they see my work."
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