Get ready to spin the roulette wheel with Stephen Gunn & Mary Gunn FUNN, the brilliant minds behind the YouTube sensation Craft Roulette. Picture a show where artistry meets chance and creativity is put to the test live on air! Every week, a guest crafter hops on board and lets the wheel decide the course of their project. This cheeky, unpredictable show has taken the internet by storm, growing from a humble audience of 10 to thousands of dedicated viewers spanning the globe in a span of just three years.
But Craft Roulette isn't just a crafting show - it's a creative revolution. It's about discovering new horizons in art, pushing boundaries, and defying the odds. The show's unique format sparks a plethora of interpretations and ideas, proving that the same parameters can birth a multitude of extraordinary crafts. Talking about variety, Mary has had the pleasure of hosting 72 different crafters, each bringing their unique flair to the table. Plus, the fun doesn't stop with watching - viewers can submit their crafts and win enticing prizes! So, whether you're a seasoned crafter or a curious onlooker, join us for this wild ride with Stephen Gunn and Craft Roulette. You'll be amazed at where the wheel lands!
Click here to check out the Craft Roulette website.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeff (00:07):
Welcome back to Art Supply Insiders.
My name is Jeff Morrow, andtoday we're talking with Stephen
Gunn, and Stephen works with aYouTube program called Craft
Roulette.
Now, before we talk withStephen, if you're enjoying
these podcasts, you can surehelp us out by going to
(00:28):
wwwartsupplyinsiderscom andhitting the subscribe button.
So let's get to Stephen.
Stephen, how are you doingtoday?
Stephen (00:38):
Doing well.
Jeff, Thanks for having me.
Jeff (00:40):
Well, gosh, we're really glad to have you, because this
is just kind of a differentpodcast for us.
So you're the producer of ashow on YouTube called Craft
Roulette, and I think you'remore than a producer, right.
Stephen (00:57):
I did help create it.
I came up with the idea with mymom, who I work with, who is
also the host.
But yes, i do more than justproduction.
I do all the softwaredevelopment and website stuff
and all the back end stuff thathelps produce such a complicated
show.
There's a lot going on with it.
Jeff (01:19):
Tell us a little bit about what is Craft Roulette.
How did you come up with thename?
How did you and your mom comeup with this idea?
Stephen (01:28):
So the show has evolved over the three years that we've
done it, and it startedextremely simple and we have
added features, we've removedfeatures, but the show has grown
over the years.
We're on episode 170 right now.
Wow, wow, right, it's just amatter of showing up.
(01:52):
Sometimes We started streamingto 10 people on Facebook and now
we have thousands of viewersacross major continents, and so
the show is a bit aboutimprovised crafting.
We do not have a set projectbefore the show starts.
(02:14):
We also bring on special guestseach week and we spin like
roulette for project, color,elements and random, and with
those four categories we thenhave to make a craft live on air
, and a lot of conversationcomes out of that, a lot of
(02:37):
creativity comes out of that,and then we also invite all of
our viewers to participate andsubmit along with the hosts.
Jeff (02:44):
So let me see if I understand this correctly,
because my wife is a crafter anda card maker, but I'm more on
the fine art side.
So you have a guest person.
Come on live on the air.
You spin this roulette wheel.
Stephen (03:02):
So it's just a wheel from IKEA, but there are 24
possible options that it canland on, and, yeah, that's what
we do.
It really lets people seecreative process when you have
to, on the fly, come up with aproject based on random print,
and I think that's part of thepower or fun of the show, is the
(03:26):
viewers really see the creativeprocess from the inception to
the completion of a project inunder an hour.
Jeff (03:35):
Wow, so this is an hour program You spin the show.
Stephen (03:41):
Excuse me, the show lasts about two hours with all
the fanfare.
Oh, the crash between the, theproject selection and then the
end of the project is about anhour hour 15 minutes.
Jeff (03:55):
So you spin the wheel and you have four different
categories.
Say what the categories areagain.
Stephen (04:00):
So their project colors , element and random.
Jeff (04:05):
Let's just give our audience an idea.
So pick something from each ofthe four categories, just
pretending like I'm the guest.
And so what would my fourcategories be?
Stephen (04:19):
So the show is primarily card making.
We allow any type of papercrafts to submit, so people
don't always make cards.
So just picking some randomparameters out of our lists that
are currently on the show andyou can see them on our website.
We might have a birthday card,We might have colors that are
(04:43):
summer vacation, We might havean element that is a plant, And
then the random will besomething kind of nebulous.
That is really fun to see howpeople address it.
But we might have heart, Whichactually that one's, you know,
and heart could mean a lot ofthings to a lot of people.
Jeff (05:06):
Now that you've given these parameters, i've got an
hour or so.
Now do I have all of thesematerials in front of me before
I start this?
Stephen (05:20):
We like to say to our guests that it is almost
impossible to prepare in like apragmatic way, because the total
possible combinations is331,776 projects And so it's
almost impossible to prepare.
But we're very generous withthe way that we consider a
(05:44):
project to be complete, to havetouched all the parameters, and
we like to say it is an artproject And so if you can
justify it, you can use it.
Your interpretation is the artand that is fine by us.
And so we see our viewers alsoget to make projects and submit
(06:06):
through our website And we havewe range right now between 300
and 400 different art projectssubmitted each week, and just
the range of ideas that we seeare phenomenal.
I mean, no project is alike.
Everyone does a different thing.
You would think that you know,having random parameters might
(06:28):
lock people into an idea, andthat's couldn't be further from
the truth.
Jeff (06:34):
Wow.
So you guys are literallyteaching people how to be
creative when just random thingsare thrown their way?
Stephen (06:46):
Kind of We like to say that we don't teach anybody
anything on our show, which iskind of you know, it's a little
bit of a separation thing from alot of YouTube channels do a
lot of educational stuff and wekind of concentrate more on just
conversing.
It's kind of like a podcastwith the special guests, because
(07:07):
we do side by side crafting,where my mom is on one side of
the screen and the guest crafter, who's different each week, is
on the other, and we get to seetwo people tackle the same
project from two differentperspectives.
And then all of our viewersalso have the entire week to
submit a project and it it's anew project every week with the
(07:28):
show, and so the iterationcycles really fast, which I
think is a winning formula.
Jeff (07:37):
Yeah, you know what's really cool.
So your mom and I, if I was oncamera right now, we would each
be doing our own craft and theviewers would be able to see
what we're doing, but your mom,mary, and I would be talking
back and forth and conversingabout what we're doing.
Stephen (07:56):
Absolutely, and one of the.
It was an idea that I came upwith because we didn't want our
guests to feel uncomfortablebefore they had to start the
craft.
We didn't want to throw themunder the bus and have them make
something bad, live on air infront of hundreds of people
(08:18):
Right, right after the spinshappen, we have a screen where
we discuss the meaning of eachparameter and how they could be
applied in different ways, andwe have the chat room going and
people contribute their ownideas and there's just hundreds
of ideas flying by And we spendabout 10 or 15 minutes talking
(08:39):
about the project before westart.
And I think that's reallyimportant because we don't want
our crafters to look bad And wedon't want them to feel like you
know they're.
We don't want them to feel likethey're spinning wheels or
spinning gears without you knowhaving something that they're
comfortable with, and so, butyes, the side by side crafting
(09:04):
is very nice.
It's.
It's fun to be able to see thecreative process of two
different individuals happenfrom start to finish.
Jeff (09:13):
Yeah, So let's talk a little bit about your mom, mary
Gunn.
Has she been a crafter and cardmaker for a while?
Stephen (09:24):
She has.
She's been doing it for 25years and I have been helping
her with her website Since Istarted making websites.
We launched her personal blogin 2003.
You can still see it on theWayback machine.
So we've been working togetherfor a long time and it's a way
for me to always kind of pushmyself as a developer, as a
(09:48):
website designer.
It gives me projects that Ikind of have full control over,
whereas you know, if you'redoing work for other people, you
kind of lack control, lackcreative.
You know creative control.
Jeff (10:00):
Yeah, you have.
you said you have a differentguest crafter every week.
We we've actually interviewedboth Amanda Stevens and Laurel
Beard and had just a great timewith with both of them.
How many guest crafters haveyou had on the show?
Stephen (10:22):
I think our roster is up to 72, which is pretty
impressive, and we look forpeople that are already making
videos, that already kind ofhave figured out the technology
side of it first.
You know, we're less concernedabout audience size and more
concerned about just tryingtrying to find people that are
doing it so that we don't haveto teach them how to do it to be
(10:45):
on the show.
Jeff (10:47):
Yeah, that's when we talk to our audience.
what they love the best is theylove the stories as you are
doing your crafts.
They love to see stuff out ofthe box and how to do things
differently, And it looks likethat's exactly what you guys do,
(11:08):
right?
Stephen (11:10):
We've kind of we kind of stumbled into it.
But, yes, absolutely, and Ithink we have a system that
really enables a lot of peopleto even find themselves as
creative thinkers, where I thinka lot of and I'm not, you know,
i don't want to rag on anybodythat's making videos at all, but
(11:30):
I, a lot of people kind of dotutorial style videos.
Yes, so people, people watchtutorial style videos and then
try and recreate the craft anddon't get much Creative juice
out of it.
And when we kind of give them alittle bit of guidelines and
And send them out on their ownand then they can complete a
project that it, they Look atthat and say, wow, i, i thought
(11:54):
of that, i did that myself andit's a really rewarding
experience.
I.
Jeff (11:59):
Can see how it would be, and when I saw your website, you
also talked about people couldwin Prizes.
How do the it's?
how does somebody win a prize?
Stephen (12:08):
To be entered into our prize pool, you just have to
submit a card, and so we makesubmitting cards as Easy as
possible.
It's just digital.
You take a picture of it, youfill out a form, upload it.
The form will your information.
So next time you don't evenhave to fill out a lot of your
information, it's already saved.
(12:29):
And Then the next week we spinand we We had a lot of people, a
guests, that were coming on ourshow and wanting to give stuff
away, and we were like, you know, we should just go directly to
the companies and not let ourguests Give stuff away, because
we don't want them to feel likethey're having to pay to play on
(12:52):
our show.
And I know that there's a lotof companies out there that
would love to give stuff awayand have their names be
broadcast, and so that's a.
We usually work with three orfour companies a month as Prize
sponsors, so we give away a lotof stuff.
Jeff (13:08):
Boy, no kidding.
And how does somebody actuallywin?
the prize is having the bestcard.
Is it random drawing?
How does that happen?
Stephen (13:18):
So I'll be clear there is no such thing as best card on
our show.
Everyone, everyone thatcontributes has their own ideas,
and That's what we love to see.
Everyone has something.
The prizes are completelyrandom.
I I wrote a program that spinsa wheel on the screen and
randomly selects a name.
(13:38):
Oh, how cool.
It's fun, and that's that'swhere I, steven Gunn, get the.
You know, the joy of the showis building the little systems
and stuff that I wouldn'totherwise Really get to build
and be creative myself.
Jeff (13:54):
Yeah, because there's all sorts of ways to be creative.
You don't have to pick up abrush or make a card to be
called an artist or a crafter.
You can do it in the digitalworld too, can't you?
Stephen (14:06):
Absolutely, and I'm a self-taught graphic designer and
I see a lot of parallels inStamping world to graphic design
world.
It's just that one's on paperand one's on screen.
Jeff (14:19):
I Could totally see that.
So give us the your website,give us your own the, the
website address.
Stephen (14:29):
The website is craft roulette dot live, not dot com,
dot live, and if you type incraft roulette in Google, you
will find it.
I think it's the first thingthat pops up, and our website
has a lot of stuff on it.
So you can see the wheelparameters, you can see all of
the galleries from the pastepisodes.
(14:50):
There's 17,000 Contributionsthat you can look at.
Wow, it's great.
Jeff (14:59):
So that's craft roulette and that's C R A F T R O U L E T
T?
E dot live L I V E, is thatright, correct?
Stephen (15:11):
Couldn't have done it better myself.
Jeff (15:13):
No, thank you very much, and you also.
Obviously you have your YouTubesite and they just type in
craft roulette to get to that.
Stephen (15:24):
Correct, and if you go to our website, our YouTube is
linked.
But, yes, if you type craftroulette into YouTube, you will
find us as well, and that'swhere the Show, the actual live
broadcast, is done, completelythrough YouTube.
Oh, and so it's every Fridaynight at 6 30 central time.
(15:44):
So for the Pacific, your time,and if you go to our website, it
will actually It will adjustfor time zone, if you have that
on your device, and it will tellyou the times in your own time
zone, because we have viewersall across the world and it's,
let me tell you, time zones areall over the place And it was
it's hard to.
It's hard to do Scheduled eventsfor a worldwide audience
(16:10):
because people just get confused, and so I tried to make it as
accessible as possible.
Jeff (16:17):
Well, based on talking with Amanda and Laurel, you
certainly have done it, and theyboth told me how incredibly fun
and easy you made this for themwhen they went on your show.
Stephen (16:32):
I'm glad to hear that.
So with a live broadcast, ialways say that there's almost
nothing or we almost never havea perfect broadcast.
There's always somethingtechnically that is a little off
and you just have to learn tolive with that thing.
with live TV or live broadcasts, and as the producer, my job is
(16:58):
to figure out how to bestmitigate or figure out those
problems as fast as possiblewhen they happen.
Jeff (17:06):
Boy do I understand that.
But I have an advantage becausewhen we get done I get to go
out back and edit out all of mygoof ups to make me sound a
whole lot better than I reallyam.
Imagine what would happen if Iwent on a live show.
Stephen (17:22):
I know exactly what would happen and it's just
something you have to live withand I am a perfectionist And so,
when you know, doing the show,it took me probably a year to
really understand that itwouldn't be perfect and I
couldn't make it perfect, but Icould try and make it as good as
possible.
Jeff (17:42):
So, looking in your crystal ball, where do you see
this going?
Do you see little offshoots anddoing other sorts of stuff?
Do you see that there's anunlimited amount of crafters and
artists out there?
Where do you see takingKraftRulet?
Stephen (18:01):
So the future of KraftRulet, i think, is just
really getting the word outthere and bringing people in
both as guests and just publiccontributors to our show And so
getting them in the groove ofdoing the project with us.
We have people that havecontributed for 150 weeks in a
(18:22):
row And so it blows us away thatthey spend the time every week
doing the project along with us,and I really think the future
of the show is just bringingmore people in And I personally
believe that when you do thosedecisions that are inside of
(18:42):
creativity and you make projectson your own, i think that's a
very rewarding and you know,good experience for people And
so that's why we do it.
So the future for us is justreally continuing on with what
we do, trying to do stuff insmall steps, try not to get too
(19:03):
out in front of ourselves andfall And just bringing people on
.
Right now we have every week wehave contributors from.
You know we have Australia, newZealand, asia, europe, africa,
south America and United Statesall over, and you know that just
(19:24):
makes us happy with what we'redoing, that I don't see a lot of
big changes coming down thepipeline, just more small
changes to try and make iteasier for the guests, easier
for the sponsors, easier foreverybody to look at galleries.
Just trying to make thingsbetter one step at a time.
Jeff (19:46):
Yeah, have you had any guests back a second time, or do
you just try to keep it freshwith somebody different each
week?
Stephen (19:58):
We've definitely had guests back on.
Some of our more recurringguests have been on nine times.
Jeff (20:06):
Oh my.
Stephen (20:06):
I think it's the ceiling right now.
We're very proud of that, thatthey're brave enough to keep
coming back.
Yes, because there's alwaysthat chance that something goes
wrong.
It is like TV.
Our guests are all verygenerous with their time and
very gracious with everything.
We couldn't be happier workingwith everybody in the craft
(20:28):
community, because everybody isso nice.
Jeff (20:32):
Well, i can certainly second that.
My business partner, dave and Ihave been in the art industry
for oh my goodness, probablygoing on 20 years in various
capacities.
We keep coming back.
All of you out there, artistsand crafters, are the most fun
people in the world, aren't they?
Stephen (20:53):
I think so.
I mean, i've worked with a lotof artists from different areas.
I was a musician, I toured, imanaged bands.
Wow, the craft community isvery nice.
I will say that The funny thingis we've only had a very few
(21:15):
people tell us no, where we'renot about asking people to be on
the show, and almost everybodyhas said yes.
Almost everybody has given ustheir time and been very
gracious about it.
We can't appreciate that more.
Jeff (21:32):
I can tell you that our audience is really glad you're
there.
Hopefully we reach a wholebunch of people that had not
heard of Craft Roulette.
So, stephen, i know you andyour team have taken this a long
ways.
We have not.
Stephen (21:53):
The show started.
We came up with the idea forthe show and broadcast the first
episode in about 48 hours Thevery first episode and you can
watch it.
We call it the pilot.
It's on our YouTube channel.
It's very rough.
All the core ideas are there,but the heart and the soul of
(22:15):
the show is very different.
In that first episode We invitedour first guest on episode 21.
It's kind of a way to both growthe show into other communities
that we knew would like it, butalso make the show more
interesting and get moreperspectives on creativity
happening.
When we first asked the firstguest to come on the show, we
(22:42):
kind of expected them to say no,and her name is Jame Amalmi.
She said yes and she was verypatient with us because we had
to figure out all the tech ofbringing a second crafter on to
our show.
That was a process.
The tech setup took hours andhours and hours and we've dialed
that down into about 20 minutesnow and all of our growing
(23:06):
periods with guests has reliedon the guests being very patient
with us.
Jeff (23:13):
Well, i've looked at two or three of the YouTube videos
and I need to tell our audiencethis is someplace.
If you are into crafting, ifyou are into card making, even
if you are an artist and doesoil colors or acrylics or
something, this is a show thatwill stimulate your thought
(23:37):
process and really help youstart looking outside of the box
for your craft making.
Stephen, i can't tell you howhappy we have been to have you
guys on the show.
As you grow and expand and getbigger, maybe you can come back
from time to time and just talkto us about some updates.
Stephen (24:00):
I love that.
Thank you for having me, Jeff.
Jeff (24:02):
Our pleasure.
You've been listening to ArtSupply Insiders.
Check back with us often as wetalk about the world of art and
craft supplies.
If you'd like to hear more ofthese podcasts, please hit the
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we'd really appreciate it ifyou'd tell a friend.
If you'd like to show yoursupport, please consider going
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(24:23):
artsupplyinsiderscom.
Now go out and create something.
Welcome back to Art Supply Insiders.
My name is Jeff Morrow, andtoday we're talking with Stephen
Gunn, and Stephen works with aYouTube program called Craft
Roulette.
Now, before we talk withStephen, if you're enjoying
these podcasts, you can surehelp us out by going to
(00:28):
wwwartsupplyinsiderscom andhitting the subscribe button.
So let's get to Stephen.
Stephen, how are you doingtoday?
Stephen (00:38):
Doing well.
Jeff, Thanks for having me.
Jeff (00:40):
Well, gosh, we're really glad to have you, because this
is just kind of a differentpodcast for us.
So you're the producer of ashow on YouTube called Craft
Roulette, and I think you'remore than a producer, right.
Stephen (00:57):
I did help create it.
I came up with the idea with mymom, who I work with, who is
also the host.
But yes, i do more than justproduction.
I do all the softwaredevelopment and website stuff
and all the back end stuff thathelps produce such a complicated
show.
There's a lot going on with it.
Jeff (01:19):
Tell us a little bit about what is Craft Roulette.
How did you come up with thename?
How did you and your mom comeup with this idea?
Stephen (01:28):
So the show has evolved over the three years that we've
done it, and it startedextremely simple and we have
added features, we've removedfeatures, but the show has grown
over the years.
We're on episode 170 right now.
Wow, wow, right, it's just amatter of showing up.
(01:52):
Sometimes We started streamingto 10 people on Facebook and now
we have thousands of viewersacross major continents, and so
the show is a bit aboutimprovised crafting.
We do not have a set projectbefore the show starts.
(02:14):
We also bring on special guestseach week and we spin like
roulette for project, color,elements and random, and with
those four categories we thenhave to make a craft live on air
, and a lot of conversationcomes out of that, a lot of
(02:37):
creativity comes out of that,and then we also invite all of
our viewers to participate andsubmit along with the hosts.
Jeff (02:44):
So let me see if I understand this correctly,
because my wife is a crafter anda card maker, but I'm more on
the fine art side.
So you have a guest person.
Come on live on the air.
You spin this roulette wheel.
Stephen (03:02):
So it's just a wheel from IKEA, but there are 24
possible options that it canland on, and, yeah, that's what
we do.
It really lets people seecreative process when you have
to, on the fly, come up with aproject based on random print,
and I think that's part of thepower or fun of the show, is the
(03:26):
viewers really see the creativeprocess from the inception to
the completion of a project inunder an hour.
Jeff (03:35):
Wow, so this is an hour program You spin the show.
Stephen (03:41):
Excuse me, the show lasts about two hours with all
the fanfare.
Oh, the crash between the, theproject selection and then the
end of the project is about anhour hour 15 minutes.
Jeff (03:55):
So you spin the wheel and you have four different
categories.
Say what the categories areagain.
Stephen (04:00):
So their project colors , element and random.
Jeff (04:05):
Let's just give our audience an idea.
So pick something from each ofthe four categories, just
pretending like I'm the guest.
And so what would my fourcategories be?
Stephen (04:19):
So the show is primarily card making.
We allow any type of papercrafts to submit, so people
don't always make cards.
So just picking some randomparameters out of our lists that
are currently on the show andyou can see them on our website.
We might have a birthday card,We might have colors that are
(04:43):
summer vacation, We might havean element that is a plant, And
then the random will besomething kind of nebulous.
That is really fun to see howpeople address it.
But we might have heart, Whichactually that one's, you know,
and heart could mean a lot ofthings to a lot of people.
Jeff (05:06):
Now that you've given these parameters, i've got an
hour or so.
Now do I have all of thesematerials in front of me before
I start this?
Stephen (05:20):
We like to say to our guests that it is almost
impossible to prepare in like apragmatic way, because the total
possible combinations is331,776 projects And so it's
almost impossible to prepare.
But we're very generous withthe way that we consider a
(05:44):
project to be complete, to havetouched all the parameters, and
we like to say it is an artproject And so if you can
justify it, you can use it.
Your interpretation is the artand that is fine by us.
And so we see our viewers alsoget to make projects and submit
(06:06):
through our website And we havewe range right now between 300
and 400 different art projectssubmitted each week, and just
the range of ideas that we seeare phenomenal.
I mean, no project is alike.
Everyone does a different thing.
You would think that you know,having random parameters might
(06:28):
lock people into an idea, andthat's couldn't be further from
the truth.
Jeff (06:34):
Wow.
So you guys are literallyteaching people how to be
creative when just random thingsare thrown their way?
Stephen (06:46):
Kind of We like to say that we don't teach anybody
anything on our show, which iskind of you know, it's a little
bit of a separation thing from alot of YouTube channels do a
lot of educational stuff and wekind of concentrate more on just
conversing.
It's kind of like a podcastwith the special guests, because
(07:07):
we do side by side crafting,where my mom is on one side of
the screen and the guest crafter, who's different each week, is
on the other, and we get to seetwo people tackle the same
project from two differentperspectives.
And then all of our viewersalso have the entire week to
submit a project and it it's anew project every week with the
(07:28):
show, and so the iterationcycles really fast, which I
think is a winning formula.
Jeff (07:37):
Yeah, you know what's really cool.
So your mom and I, if I was oncamera right now, we would each
be doing our own craft and theviewers would be able to see
what we're doing, but your mom,mary, and I would be talking
back and forth and conversingabout what we're doing.
Stephen (07:56):
Absolutely, and one of the.
It was an idea that I came upwith because we didn't want our
guests to feel uncomfortablebefore they had to start the
craft.
We didn't want to throw themunder the bus and have them make
something bad, live on air infront of hundreds of people
(08:18):
Right, right after the spinshappen, we have a screen where
we discuss the meaning of eachparameter and how they could be
applied in different ways, andwe have the chat room going and
people contribute their ownideas and there's just hundreds
of ideas flying by And we spendabout 10 or 15 minutes talking
(08:39):
about the project before westart.
And I think that's reallyimportant because we don't want
our crafters to look bad And wedon't want them to feel like you
know they're.
We don't want them to feel likethey're spinning wheels or
spinning gears without you knowhaving something that they're
comfortable with, and so, butyes, the side by side crafting
(09:04):
is very nice.
It's.
It's fun to be able to see thecreative process of two
different individuals happenfrom start to finish.
Jeff (09:13):
Yeah, So let's talk a little bit about your mom, mary
Gunn.
Has she been a crafter and cardmaker for a while?
Stephen (09:24):
She has.
She's been doing it for 25years and I have been helping
her with her website Since Istarted making websites.
We launched her personal blogin 2003.
You can still see it on theWayback machine.
So we've been working togetherfor a long time and it's a way
for me to always kind of pushmyself as a developer, as a
(09:48):
website designer.
It gives me projects that Ikind of have full control over,
whereas you know, if you'redoing work for other people, you
kind of lack control, lackcreative.
You know creative control.
Jeff (10:00):
Yeah, you have.
you said you have a differentguest crafter every week.
We we've actually interviewedboth Amanda Stevens and Laurel
Beard and had just a great timewith with both of them.
How many guest crafters haveyou had on the show?
Stephen (10:22):
I think our roster is up to 72, which is pretty
impressive, and we look forpeople that are already making
videos, that already kind ofhave figured out the technology
side of it first.
You know, we're less concernedabout audience size and more
concerned about just tryingtrying to find people that are
doing it so that we don't haveto teach them how to do it to be
(10:45):
on the show.
Jeff (10:47):
Yeah, that's when we talk to our audience.
what they love the best is theylove the stories as you are
doing your crafts.
They love to see stuff out ofthe box and how to do things
differently, And it looks likethat's exactly what you guys do,
(11:08):
right?
Stephen (11:10):
We've kind of we kind of stumbled into it.
But, yes, absolutely, and Ithink we have a system that
really enables a lot of peopleto even find themselves as
creative thinkers, where I thinka lot of and I'm not, you know,
i don't want to rag on anybodythat's making videos at all, but
(11:30):
I, a lot of people kind of dotutorial style videos.
Yes, so people, people watchtutorial style videos and then
try and recreate the craft anddon't get much Creative juice
out of it.
And when we kind of give them alittle bit of guidelines and
And send them out on their ownand then they can complete a
project that it, they Look atthat and say, wow, i, i thought
(11:54):
of that, i did that myself andit's a really rewarding
experience.
I.
Jeff (11:59):
Can see how it would be, and when I saw your website, you
also talked about people couldwin Prizes.
How do the it's?
how does somebody win a prize?
Stephen (12:08):
To be entered into our prize pool, you just have to
submit a card, and so we makesubmitting cards as Easy as
possible.
It's just digital.
You take a picture of it, youfill out a form, upload it.
The form will your information.
So next time you don't evenhave to fill out a lot of your
information, it's already saved.
(12:29):
And Then the next week we spinand we We had a lot of people, a
guests, that were coming on ourshow and wanting to give stuff
away, and we were like, you know, we should just go directly to
the companies and not let ourguests Give stuff away, because
we don't want them to feel likethey're having to pay to play on
(12:52):
our show.
And I know that there's a lotof companies out there that
would love to give stuff awayand have their names be
broadcast, and so that's a.
We usually work with three orfour companies a month as Prize
sponsors, so we give away a lotof stuff.
Jeff (13:08):
Boy, no kidding.
And how does somebody actuallywin?
the prize is having the bestcard.
Is it random drawing?
How does that happen?
Stephen (13:18):
So I'll be clear there is no such thing as best card on
our show.
Everyone, everyone thatcontributes has their own ideas,
and That's what we love to see.
Everyone has something.
The prizes are completelyrandom.
I I wrote a program that spinsa wheel on the screen and
randomly selects a name.
(13:38):
Oh, how cool.
It's fun, and that's that'swhere I, steven Gunn, get the.
You know, the joy of the showis building the little systems
and stuff that I wouldn'totherwise Really get to build
and be creative myself.
Jeff (13:54):
Yeah, because there's all sorts of ways to be creative.
You don't have to pick up abrush or make a card to be
called an artist or a crafter.
You can do it in the digitalworld too, can't you?
Stephen (14:06):
Absolutely, and I'm a self-taught graphic designer and
I see a lot of parallels inStamping world to graphic design
world.
It's just that one's on paperand one's on screen.
Jeff (14:19):
I Could totally see that.
So give us the your website,give us your own the, the
website address.
Stephen (14:29):
The website is craft roulette dot live, not dot com,
dot live, and if you type incraft roulette in Google, you
will find it.
I think it's the first thingthat pops up, and our website
has a lot of stuff on it.
So you can see the wheelparameters, you can see all of
the galleries from the pastepisodes.
(14:50):
There's 17,000 Contributionsthat you can look at.
Wow, it's great.
Jeff (14:59):
So that's craft roulette and that's C R A F T R O U L E T
T?
E dot live L I V E, is thatright, correct?
Stephen (15:11):
Couldn't have done it better myself.
Jeff (15:13):
No, thank you very much, and you also.
Obviously you have your YouTubesite and they just type in
craft roulette to get to that.
Stephen (15:24):
Correct, and if you go to our website, our YouTube is
linked.
But, yes, if you type craftroulette into YouTube, you will
find us as well, and that'swhere the Show, the actual live
broadcast, is done, completelythrough YouTube.
Oh, and so it's every Fridaynight at 6 30 central time.
(15:44):
So for the Pacific, your time,and if you go to our website, it
will actually It will adjustfor time zone, if you have that
on your device, and it will tellyou the times in your own time
zone, because we have viewersall across the world and it's,
let me tell you, time zones areall over the place And it was
it's hard to.
It's hard to do Scheduled eventsfor a worldwide audience
(16:10):
because people just get confused, and so I tried to make it as
accessible as possible.
Jeff (16:17):
Well, based on talking with Amanda and Laurel, you
certainly have done it, and theyboth told me how incredibly fun
and easy you made this for themwhen they went on your show.
Stephen (16:32):
I'm glad to hear that.
So with a live broadcast, ialways say that there's almost
nothing or we almost never havea perfect broadcast.
There's always somethingtechnically that is a little off
and you just have to learn tolive with that thing.
with live TV or live broadcasts, and as the producer, my job is
(16:58):
to figure out how to bestmitigate or figure out those
problems as fast as possiblewhen they happen.
Jeff (17:06):
Boy do I understand that.
But I have an advantage becausewhen we get done I get to go
out back and edit out all of mygoof ups to make me sound a
whole lot better than I reallyam.
Imagine what would happen if Iwent on a live show.
Stephen (17:22):
I know exactly what would happen and it's just
something you have to live withand I am a perfectionist And so,
when you know, doing the show,it took me probably a year to
really understand that itwouldn't be perfect and I
couldn't make it perfect, but Icould try and make it as good as
possible.
Jeff (17:42):
So, looking in your crystal ball, where do you see
this going?
Do you see little offshoots anddoing other sorts of stuff?
Do you see that there's anunlimited amount of crafters and
artists out there?
Where do you see takingKraftRulet?
Stephen (18:01):
So the future of KraftRulet, i think, is just
really getting the word outthere and bringing people in
both as guests and just publiccontributors to our show And so
getting them in the groove ofdoing the project with us.
We have people that havecontributed for 150 weeks in a
(18:22):
row And so it blows us away thatthey spend the time every week
doing the project along with us,and I really think the future
of the show is just bringingmore people in And I personally
believe that when you do thosedecisions that are inside of
(18:42):
creativity and you make projectson your own, i think that's a
very rewarding and you know,good experience for people And
so that's why we do it.
So the future for us is justreally continuing on with what
we do, trying to do stuff insmall steps, try not to get too
(19:03):
out in front of ourselves andfall And just bringing people on
.
Right now we have every week wehave contributors from.
You know we have Australia, newZealand, asia, europe, africa,
south America and United Statesall over, and you know that just
(19:24):
makes us happy with what we'redoing, that I don't see a lot of
big changes coming down thepipeline, just more small
changes to try and make iteasier for the guests, easier
for the sponsors, easier foreverybody to look at galleries.
Just trying to make thingsbetter one step at a time.
Jeff (19:46):
Yeah, have you had any guests back a second time, or do
you just try to keep it freshwith somebody different each
week?
Stephen (19:58):
We've definitely had guests back on.
Some of our more recurringguests have been on nine times.
Jeff (20:06):
Oh my.
Stephen (20:06):
I think it's the ceiling right now.
We're very proud of that, thatthey're brave enough to keep
coming back.
Yes, because there's alwaysthat chance that something goes
wrong.
It is like TV.
Our guests are all verygenerous with their time and
very gracious with everything.
We couldn't be happier workingwith everybody in the craft
(20:28):
community, because everybody isso nice.
Jeff (20:32):
Well, i can certainly second that.
My business partner, dave and Ihave been in the art industry
for oh my goodness, probablygoing on 20 years in various
capacities.
We keep coming back.
All of you out there, artistsand crafters, are the most fun
people in the world, aren't they?
Stephen (20:53):
I think so.
I mean, i've worked with a lotof artists from different areas.
I was a musician, I toured, imanaged bands.
Wow, the craft community isvery nice.
I will say that The funny thingis we've only had a very few
(21:15):
people tell us no, where we'renot about asking people to be on
the show, and almost everybodyhas said yes.
Almost everybody has given ustheir time and been very
gracious about it.
We can't appreciate that more.
Jeff (21:32):
I can tell you that our audience is really glad you're
there.
Hopefully we reach a wholebunch of people that had not
heard of Craft Roulette.
So, stephen, i know you andyour team have taken this a long
ways.
We have not.
Stephen (21:53):
The show started.
We came up with the idea forthe show and broadcast the first
episode in about 48 hours Thevery first episode and you can
watch it.
We call it the pilot.
It's on our YouTube channel.
It's very rough.
All the core ideas are there,but the heart and the soul of
(22:15):
the show is very different.
In that first episode We invitedour first guest on episode 21.
It's kind of a way to both growthe show into other communities
that we knew would like it, butalso make the show more
interesting and get moreperspectives on creativity
happening.
When we first asked the firstguest to come on the show, we
(22:42):
kind of expected them to say no,and her name is Jame Amalmi.
She said yes and she was verypatient with us because we had
to figure out all the tech ofbringing a second crafter on to
our show.
That was a process.
The tech setup took hours andhours and hours and we've dialed
that down into about 20 minutesnow and all of our growing
(23:06):
periods with guests has reliedon the guests being very patient
with us.
Jeff (23:13):
Well, i've looked at two or three of the YouTube videos
and I need to tell our audiencethis is someplace.
If you are into crafting, ifyou are into card making, even
if you are an artist and doesoil colors or acrylics or
something, this is a show thatwill stimulate your thought
(23:37):
process and really help youstart looking outside of the box
for your craft making.
Stephen, i can't tell you howhappy we have been to have you
guys on the show.
As you grow and expand and getbigger, maybe you can come back
from time to time and just talkto us about some updates.
Stephen (24:00):
I love that.
Thank you for having me, Jeff.
Jeff (24:02):
Our pleasure.
You've been listening to ArtSupply Insiders.
Check back with us often as wetalk about the world of art and
craft supplies.
If you'd like to hear more ofthese podcasts, please hit the
subscribe button on yourpreferred podcast platform and
we'd really appreciate it ifyou'd tell a friend.
If you'd like to show yoursupport, please consider going
to our website and hitting thesupport button at
(24:23):
artsupplyinsiderscom.
Now go out and create something.
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