Lauren Riihimaki recalls the days she made embroidered friendship bracelets — one of the first crafts she learned as a kid at the YMCA of Niagara summer camp in Ontario.
She would go on to make videos “for years” on how to make those bracelets — her first contributions to the video-sharing website YouTube.
Little did she know she would be part of the first generation of do-it-yourself (DIY) YouTubers at a time when being a content creator wasn’t a conventional career choice.
Today, the 32-year-old from St. Catharines, is one of the most recognizable creators of crafts and lifestyle content, going by the name LaurDIY.
Now living in Los Angeles, LaurDIY has over 8.8 million followers across her YouTube channels. She has partnered with Disney, Starbucks, PopSockets and Ardene, a fashion company.
She even designed her own line of onesies and sleepwear for Ardene.
In some of her most recent videos, she documented a trip back home to St. Catharines, as part of a journey to rediscover her love of creating.
In one video, she revealed an intimate look at her childhood, a time where creativity “was untouched by expectation, analytics or outside judgement.”
“I have quite literally the best job in the entire world,” Riihimaki told CBC News in an interview. “There is nothing that I would rather be doing, but there is a lot more responsibility tied to it.”
She reflected on her childhood, thinking back to her art classes at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School where she could create “with no pressure.”
“It was just an entirely different era of creating here,” she said. “It was just for the love of it and that was, I think, something that I needed to be reminded of. That is St. Catharines for me.”
Her mom Gail Riihimaki, also known by fans as MomDIY, says her daughter always gravitated towards colouring books and craft kits as a toddler to altering her clothes and teaching music at the Niagara Conservatory of Music in her teens.
“It’s funny because neither my husband nor I are particularly artistic,” Gail told CBC News. “Being a social media influencer is a big surprise. Guidance counsellor didn’t talk about that.”
Riihimaki knew early on she wanted to work in the creative industry, picking interior and graphic design as her top career choices when she was asked in Grade 5.
Three generations of her family lived in St. Catharines. At 18, she was eager to see what else was out there and moved to Toronto to study graphic communications management at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Excited to be living on her own in a bigger and busier city, creative burnout began to creep in for Riihimaki.
Gail said the program was a “mixed blessing” for her daughter, forcing her to find different outlets for her creativity to blossom.
“When she just started posting videos for her own pleasure, nobody knew, not even Lauren… The world didn’t even know at that point that it could eventually turn into a career,” said Gail.
After graduating in 2015, Riihimaki would pursue content creation full time and announced her move to Los Angeles on her Draw My Life video from 2016 to be closer to other YouTubers.
WATCH | Lauren Riihimaki and her mother discuss what she misses from home:
Ten years later, earlier this month, the YouTuber published a video showing her winter wardrobe for her short trip to St. Catharines on Instagram and TikTok, prompting comments of shock and pride from fans in the Niagara Region.
One commenter, someone who “went to Niagara College,” said they are “constantly shocked” that Riihimaki is from St. Catharines. Another said: “Niagara region girlies unite.”
Riihimaki said the recent trip was to celebrate her cousin’s first baby and spend time with family — a priority of hers as she’s gotten older.
These days, the YouTuber is working on new creative pursuits, taking her DIY skills to the next level by room flipping her house in Los Angeles. In October, she also co-launched a line of accessories for dog walkers, called Fuzzboy Originals, with her close friend from Toronto Dani Roche.
“It’s been a passion project that I’ve had on the back burner for so many years,” said Riihimaki.
