My wife and I decided, this year, to do a lot of handmade Christmas presents for our family. In part, we wanted to save some money (though the jury is still out on if that happened), but I think we both felt these types of gifts would be a bit more personal and mean a lot more.

My wife’s brother is a big hockey fan. He’s currently a student at the University of North Dakota where following the hockey team is a way of life. Now, und just underwent some controversial changes to their nickname and, long story short, und is no longer the “Fighting Sioux”. It’s just “North Dakota”.

This wouldn’t normally be a huge deal to me, but the now retired Fighting Sioux logo was pretty kick-ass, so it’s unfortunate that no more merchandise bearing the mark is being produced. So, we decided on building my brother-in-law a cornhole set with a huge Sioux logo right in the middle.

Note: If you’re unfamiliar with cornhole, check it out at the Cornhole Wiki.

I’m glad we started in late November, because we ran into all sorts of issues throughout the project. Here are a few of those issues and what I learned from them:

Bad lumber

I’m by no means a skilled carpenter, and I’m sure there are those who can turn a crap piece of wood into a beautiful table or something. For most of us, though, the old adage rings true: You can polish a turd…

So, the moral of the story is spend a little bit more and get the good stuff. And I’m not just talking about lumber here. For print jobs, get the best paper you can. For websites, don’t skimp on the hosting or server costs. You can slap some paint on bad wood to pretty it up, but its real value will still show through, and then you’ll be sorry.

Lesson: Buy good materials to work with. You can easily make good stuff worse, but it’s much harder to make bad stuff better.

Poor working conditions

I love living in North Dakota. I really do. There’s space, room to breathe, and it ain’t too hard on the wallet either (for now). The only caveat is the sometimes brutal winters. And the lack of a heated garage. Trying to build a project like this, in a single stall, cold, dark garage is a nightmare.

The same is true for working day-to-day. I work in my home office, which, as of right now, is crowded with baby toys, diapers, and boxes of baby wipes from Amazon. It’s a fair assumption I’m not getting the most out of my space right now.

Lesson: Work in a space suited to the work you’re doing. Make sure it sparks your creativity and productivity.

Wrong tools

A jigsaw is a super versatile tool. It’s great for round and irregularly-shaped cuts through plywood or thin wood stock. What it isn’t good at is creating straight edges through two-by-fours. You need a miter saw for that.

Lesson: Use the right tool for the job. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. Beg, borrow, and steal!

Assumptions

Because the Sioux logo has been retired (and is kind of a taboo subject throughout the state), we assumed it would be impossible to get a stencil of the logo made. We talked with a friend about it, who immediately said he knew who to ask. The next morning, he showed up with two machine-cut adhesive vinyl stencils, and the resulting logos look great.

Lesson: Don’t be afraid to ask. You never know what you can get unless you do.

Lesson the second: Take advantage of connections. I’m not saying abuse them. But use ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.

Conclusion

After every project, I look at my process, what went right, and more importantly, what went wrong. If I royally screw something up, I’ll probably never make that same mistake again. And that’s the beauty of the creative process. We get knocked down, brush ourselves off, then get right back up to fight another day.

So don’t be afraid to tackle those projects that seem too big, or too complex, or too whatever. Make a mistake or two, or twelve. As long as you don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over, it was worth it. You learned something, and that’s valuable.