6 Reasons Why LaurDIY Is Our #WCW
I don’t know if you guys were around for Halloween (aka the ACTUAL most wonderful time of the year — sorry, Xmas), but it’s one of our favorite times to connect, Pin and create with other uber creatives in the DIY community. One of the online DIYers we fell head over html in love with this past Halloween was Lauren Riihimaki or, as we all know her best, LaurDIY. This 21-year-old YouTube star is living the #iamcreative dream, having just passed the 1,000,000th subscriber mark this year. In case you need a refresher course in Reasons to Love Laur or need us to make the intro (Where have you been?! Clearly not making *this* for your office-appropriate Halloween costume this year…), here are a few reasons why you should be subscribing to this #WCW.
1. She’s a Total Inspiration for Budding DIYers: Like all good things — Post-It Notes, potato chips and Play-Doh to name a few — Lauren shares with us that LaurDIY actually started by accident: “I made a YouTube account with the name LaurDIY solely for the purpose of using YT to upload the videos that would be later embedded into my blog posts. I had no intentions of using the channel for anything other than uploading and pasting the URL into wordpress, I didn’t even know YouTube and the communities that surround it existed.” Let’s file this one under Very Happy Mistakes, k?
2. She’s a Maker + a Shaker Racking Up Those YT Views: “As soon as I realized that the DIY/lifestyle/beauty community existed on YouTube, it’s like a whole other world opened up. Not only are there other creators that make similar content, but we all come together to create an amazing community that supports one another. Through YouTube I’m able to have full creative control over the content that I post while still being able to be myself and show my personality in each of my videos. I’m able to connect with my viewers in a variety of ways, meet other similar content creators from all over the world and monetize the content that I love to create!” Yeah, girl!
3. AND SHE’S STILL IN SCHOOL: What may have started as an NBD upload lead to another… and another… and another video and another 100,000 views and now she’s kind of a baller with over a million avid fans and followers waiting (often impatiently ;) for her next video to release. COOL, but even cooler = she’s still in college.
This is a day in the life of LaurDIY: “Right now as a university student about to head into my final semester of 4th year, life is pretty hectic. On a day to day basis I’m doing assignments for school, planning video ideas, gathering supplies for the next DIY video, interacting with my viewers and creating content for social media, filming, editing, uploading and attempting to maintain a normal social life! It’s busy but I’ve never been happier.” If that’s not motivation to live out your own dreams, we don’t know what is.
4. Her Superhero Name Could Be LaurDIRECTOR: Okay, not really, but maybeeee because homegirl does her own shooting. That’s right — she is a one-woman show. We got the lowdown on how technology is crucial to what she does: “The accessibility and affordability of HD cameras and DSLRs has definitely made it easier for main channel videos and even vlogs to be of amazing quality. The official YouTube video size actually changed not too long into my YouTube career as these cameras got more affordable and more YouTubers were shooting in 1080p.” She’s techy and she knows it (cue tunes).
5. She’s Wise Way Beyond Her Years: We all get there — into slumps where it’s tough to make, hard to dream up what to make and being creative on a deadline sounds like, well, work. How does Lauren do it? “Staying productive in regards to anything YouTube related is never an issue! I’m always insanely motivated to better my content and constantly thinking about what’s next for LaurDIY. School on the other hand is where I fall short in motivation and productivity. Time management and rewarding myself with a (sometimes lengthy) YouTube video watching session or something is usually necessary to get me motivated to get things done for school.” So, what we’re hearing is that it’s okay for us to binge watch all of your YouTube videos the next time we have writers’ block, right Lauren? Cool!
6. 2015 Is Looking like a GOOD Year for Laur: We got the chance to ask Lauren what she has planned for next year and she only got us counting down the days ‘til Sunday (four days, btw) and well beyond. “DIY videos on Sundays will be a consistent thing until LaurDIY is no more, so you can expect that for sure. All the amazing things I’ve had the opportunity to do this year were so unexpected so it’s definitely hard to say what’s to come – but I’m unreal excited to be done with school and dedicating all of my time to LaurDIY. This is a super unofficial and hopeful wish for the future, but I’d love to do a DIY book or collaborate with a retail store.”
Um, Laur, that’s not the craziest dream. Either of ‘em. <3 <3
Are you tuning in to LaurDIY on the reg? What’s your favorite video? Share below!
