Happy accidents and a book giveaway

I still remember an art class I had senior year in college. I was having a talk with my instructor about how frustrated I was with an oil pastel piece I'd been working on.

She said "Okay. Dig into that box of pastels and find the most putrid color you can."

I dug around and found a dirty green looking pastel.

"Now take that and color over your piece."

I was horrified "What!? "

She said, "Sometimes something has to get worse or even ruined in order to get better."

I trusted her, took a leap of faith and colored over my work.

And you know what?

She was right.

That piece took on a whole different direction and dimension and pushed it to a level I didn't know I was capable of.

I remember her words often . "Sometimes something has to get worse in order to get better."

Kind of a clean slate, a new direction.

Now the pastel and cleaning - are intentional - but often it's the unintentional whoops that turns out for the best.

It could be a mistake in a job or a relationship, some things turn out to be a learning experience or forces you to move on to something better.

Sometimes it's worse before it gets better.

And I use it with 4.5 year old Ben, who is gets easily frustrated with his art if something doesn't turn out as he originally hoped. We end up with lots of crumpled paper balls on the table.

I'll try to help him find potential in those unintentional smears or lines. "Hey, what do you think that smudge could turn into? Maybe it could be a rocket ship or a cloud? "

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And in the serendipity that seems to be happing in my life lately - Cribsheet received a book in the mail for review: Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzburg. It's exactly the message I had been writing about. It looks like it's for kids with colorful pop ups and flaps but the message rings true for adults too. "Sometimes a mistake is an opportunity to make something beautiful." In keeping with my recent coffee karma - I'm passing this book along to one of our Cribsheet readers.

All you have to do is write a comment about a mistake, mishap, or oops you or your kids have made that ended up being something for the better.

Share with us below - in the meantime here's a preview of the book:

I'll pick a winner at random. Please include your blog url in comments if you have one - or you can also shoot an email to cribsheet@startribune.com.