About The Show

Craft Roulette is a live card making challenge show hosted by Mary Gunn FUNN and produced by her son, Stephen. The show was conceived organically and has progressed over time to become a live-crafting destination and creative community. Everyone is invited to play along!

If you haven't watched an episode yet and want to see how the show works, please head over to our Episode Archive and check out the most recent episode. Since the show is always changing, it's best to just experience it for yourself.

Stephen has been helping Mary with her web presence since 2003 when they launched MaryGunnFUNN.com. Since then, they have tried many things in an effort to grow Mary's businesses and Stephen's web skills. They launched a private educational website called FUNNUniversity.com together in 2018.

Mary had been teaching classes based on kits and stamp sets for twenty years. With each new product or kit she’d work hard to make unique and clever creative projects.

Stephen pushed Mary to change her thinking and base her classes on ideas and techniques instead of products and kits. The phrase "Ideas, not products" was adopted as FUNN University’s mantra in late 2019. The change in thinking allowed for classes to be sorted by categories like project, colors, and elements.

At one point in February 2020, Mary and Stephen were discussing upcoming lesson plans for FUNN U. and Stephen joked how class topics could be randomly selected for an endless supply of lessons. As it turned out, Mary’s husband Doug had bought her a wheel at Ikea not long before and they joked about using the wheel to select lesson topics.

After about 30 minutes of brain-storming, the core idea of Craft Roulette was born. Initially they wanted to call the show “Wheel Of Crafting” but didn’t want to infringe on the mega popular TV show by a similar name.

The first episode aired live on March 13th 2020. The platform was Mary’s Facebook Page and had about 10 viewers. There was no logo, graphics, or fan-fare. Stephen wrote the software that kept track of the parameters an hour before the show started. The episode was good, but rough. Stephen and Mary decided to keep going. They continue to grow and try changes to the show. One of the most pivotal changes was that of adding Guest Crafters for Episode 21.

Craft Roulette didn't start as a card making community challenge show, but the community quickly rose to the challenge. Contributions began as early as the 2nd episode. Vicki Emmerson and Vicky Logan posted their projects to Mary's Facebook. Others followed suit and started posting their contributions to Mary's FB page after each episode.

Mary and Stephen thought it was wonderful that people wanted to participate and decided to integrate card contributions into the show. Episode #4 had the first Contribution Recap slide show. As the show has grown, so has the Contribution Recap.

Craft Roulette's community can be experienced in the chatroom during the live show, on the Craft Roulette Show Facebook group, or on the Patreon Page. We are very proud of the group of positive crafty people that enjoy the challenge as much as we do.

We are also extremely proud to have community members that have submitted to many many many of our challenges. We're all inspired by the leaders which have developed.

Bringing guest crafters on the show was Stephen's idea as a way to enhance and keep the show fresh. The very first crafter Mary invited to be on the show said "Yes". Big thanks to Jayma Malme for appearing on Episode #21 and being our first guest.

The original plan was to only have a guest on once a month, but it turned out to be such FUNN that the plan was changed. Having guests on the show turned into the new standard.

We have slowly built up our studio over the years, progressing from web cams to DSLR cameras. We've added studio lighting and professional mics to enhance the production quality of the show.

Stephen has been working on the website regularly for 3 years, adding new features and refining old ones. His dedication ensures that our online presence keeps evolving and improving.

We constantly strive to improve the quality of the show for the benefit of our viewers. This commitment to excellence is not only for our audience but also reflects our passion for progressing the show and pushing the boundaries of production quality, as well as our personal craft and enjoyment of producing something excellent.

We have also added a Membership section to our website that allows people to support our efforts through a subscription. This new feature helps us connect more deeply with our members through Zoom calls, discussions, and other interactive features.

Our members also benefit from exclusive access to bonus shows, additional content, and special perks. This membership program not only supports the show but also enhances the overall experience for our dedicated community.

If you are still reading and want to help support the show, please check out the Support our Efforts page to learn more.