Painting over letters

Mistakes make way for greatness

I’m getting close to the end of my primary craft project of the year: a 1:12 scale miniature store called Pinto’s Provisions. For the past 11 months I’ve been making tiny wares for the shop—merch, cheese, home goods, and a whole range of items.

As of today I’ve spent 158 hours and 3 minutes on my tiny store across 109 crafting sessions, all tracked in Practice.

It’s kind of wild that nearly a year’s worth of work fits inside a few plastic containers.

Despite their diminutive scale, each tiny box of crackers and miniature tote bag represents a series of challenges and small triumphs.

Now that I’m in the homestretch, I’m making decisions faster than I usually would, which feels slightly uncomfortable. I tend to savor my creative practice and enjoy every step of the process. But this project came with a deadline I was hoping to meet.

It started as part of the Miniatures.com (RIP) 32nd annual Creatin’ Contest, where everyone begins with the same kit and creates something unique. I participated last year and was excited to do it again, but the company went out of business a few months after announcing this year’s kit. Still, many of us had already bought it and had started dreaming up ideas, so a small group of miniaturists made a pact to finish our builds by the original deadline: December 5, 2025. Aka tomorrow.

And while I am usually a woman of my word, I’m not going to meet it. Because:

1. it’s a fake deadline (and you know how I feel about fake rules!)

2. I’m not letting a fake deadline interfere with the satisfaction and joy I get from my creative practice

3. I’m giving myself the space to make mistakes, learn, and grow

Make it again

Along with the tiny wares I’ve been creating all year, I also have to build the actual structure for my shop. Earlier this week, it was time to finish the facade.

I decided to take a stab at hand-painting the store’s sign…and let’s just say it didn’t go as planned. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good enough.

Assessing my paint job.

I looked at it for a while and realized that it would bug me every time I saw it, and I didn’t want to spend a year on something only to be annoyed by it! So I slept on it. And when I woke up, I looked at it again, grabbed a paintbrush and painted over it without hesitation.

I logged the session in Practice and also posted the moment on Instagram.

And, suddenly: the people were upset!

My DMs were filled with condolences, support, and suggestions. It was incredibly sweet and a lovely reminder of how generous the miniatures community is on Instagram, but it was funny that painting over a sign made folks assume I was devastated.

Truthfully, after an initial sting of disappointment, my reaction was neutral. “So it goes,” I thought, and immediately started brainstorming alternatives. With a few brushstrokes, I erased the first attempt from the facade and—mostly—from my mind.

I will always show the fails

I haven’t been mourning the loss of that hand-painted sign, but I have been thinking about it as a metaphor. How often do we cling to something simply because we’ve put time into it? Or because we’re afraid to show vulnerability or admit that we were wrong? How often does changing course feel like failure when it’s really just…part of the process?

Sure, mistakes can be dangerous in certain contexts, but in 95% of daily life, they’re not a big deal.

In an ideal world, painting over something (literally or figuratively) shouldn’t compel strangers to offer their condolences on the Internet, though I appreciate the kindness. And the instinct 100% makes sense. We’re conditioned to treat failure as shameful or private, especially online.

But if you’ve been reading this Substack for a while, or know me IRL, you know that I believe that failure, paired with the willingness to try new things, is one of the most beautiful parts of being human. It creates room for discovery and growth. It invites curiosity.

Art school taught me this, and every time I make something, I’m reminded of it. I am self-critical, but the critique isn’t rooted in shame or fear of failure, it’s just that my standards are high and I want to exceed my own expectations. I rarely assume my first attempt will be perfect, but I do assume I’ll learn something that will help me make something great, eventually.

Combatting perfectionism with craft

My hope is that as more people find and nurture a creative hobby through Practice, they’ll build comfort with failure, too. As they track their fails, they’ll normalize them, and build evidence that even if something felt like a catastrophe at the time, missteps are just part of the path.

I explained that I wasn’t sad about my sign, and I got this response. Yes, 100%!!

And if you don’t like how something is going or something goes wrong? Make a change or try a different approach. It’s rarely devastating. It’s just life.

Easier said than done, I know.

But, creative hobbies are a great way to build this muscle. They’re low-stakes and fun, regardless of outcomes. And very few mistakes actually matter to anyone but you. As you practice (and track it in Practice 😉), you start to see how the “fails” contribute to your progress. The resilience spills off the craft mat.

And you know what? My decision to paint over those letters turned out to be an awesome choice. It gave me space to try something different with a new material, and I love the outcome.

Here’s my final sign, made out of a thick Heat Transfer Vinyl called Brick 600.

At the risk of sounding incredibly cheesy: I dream of a world where we all feel bold enough to paint over the things that bug us in our lives, or don’t meet our expectations, so we can try something different.