LaurDIY
YouTube Creator and Executive Producer, Craftopia
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What She Does Now
Have you already binged every Great British Bake Off season… twice? Lauren Riihimaki is here to give your quaran-tainment an inspiring upgrade—and make her mark as a Hollywood power player, too. The digital star known as LaurDIY is the host and executive producer of Craftopia, a new HBO Max reality competition that premieres today (!) where glitter and glue guns can lead to a $5k prize.
Here’s how Lauren’s getting it done from home while broadcasting to millions of fans around the world.
How has your day-to-day routine changed since Los Angeles declared a lockdown?
You know what? Life is not that crazy different for me. My boyfriend and I both work from home. A lot of couples right now are really going through it, trying to figure out if they can spend this much time together! But I’m a homebody anyway, and I work from home normally. So aside from Zoom parties instead of real parties, it’s pretty close to my normal life.
Have you pivoted your content during quarantine?
Sure. For example, I felt like it was my responsibility to give creative solutions for making DIY [face] masks at home. The rules changed so quickly! You didn’t need a mask, now you do, but they’re sold out—what are you going to do?! So I jumped on that.
How did you expand your career from YouTube to HBO Max?
For Craftopia, [HBO] approached me with a show concept… Apparently, one of the executives has a 16-year-old daughter who really went to bat for me! Her name is Grace; she’s 16, and she was like, “Mom, you have to hire LaurDIY!”
You’re Craftopia’s host and also one of its executive producers. Was that always part of the plan?
Absolutely, because I asked if I could do it. I said, “I’m in love with Craftopia’s concept, and besides being the host, I’d love to be an executive producer as well to make sure I can bring my own custom flair to it.” And they were very receptive, which was great… The cool part is, they were very open to all the feedback I was giving. They went all-in with me.
You use a lot of glitter in your crafts. What’s your advice for cleaning it up at home?
Use duct tape. It picks up everything and it’s the easiest way to go. Unless it’s in your hair, and then it’s like, thoughts and prayers wishing the glitter away.
Help! We cannot cut a neat, straight line with scissors. Any tips?
The tip is, don’t use scissors! Use a ruler and either an X-Acto knife or a rotary cutting wheel, and do one straight slice against a ruler.
It’s your job to be on camera every day. What’s in your skincare stash?
My favorite products are from Kinship, which is an organic and vegan line. I went through a very bad skin journey, and this has made a world of difference. I used to be a lash extension aficionado, but obviously that stopped during quarantine. Now I use Ardell Wispies, which are my favorite false lashes. And lately, I’ve been using Fenty foundation, which is great.