About

Hey! I’m Sandy, owner of Make! My Mistake, a diy artsty-craftsy site that I created to show you how easy it is to make beautiful things all by yourself and entertain along the way with my unwillingness to properly prepare for a project with neither adequate time nor materials, ha! I somehow wing most projects and adventures, make mistakes, but always to my surprise  – end up with cute results! At least I think so. If you think one of my projects sucks, you can tell me.

I was raised in Brooklyn, NY, by immigrant parents who were creative and resourceful in starting their own successful clothing company. I attended Parsons School of Design as a fashion major and absolutely hated it! (Sorry Project Runway, I will always love you though). I left in my 3rd year because I “wanted to major in English and Creative Writing”, I don’t know if the culture difference made this statement get lost in translation, but my folks didn’t understand at all and looked at me like I had just announced a new life of training circus monkeys.

The joke was on me because as an adult after a brief stint at Brooklyn College, most of my professional career was spent working as a technical designer for….drumroll… the fashion industry. Womp, womp. I didn’t enjoy that so much either, but it paid well, and I was young and never tired, so I spent my off hours playing guitar for female punk bands, writing music, painting, drawing, traveling, and making pretty things.

After my husband and I married, we started our own online custom t-shirt printing business, which afforded me the incredible opportunity to work from home while raising our infant daughter. The goal was to design my own line of graphic tees, but the wholesale business took off so well there was never enough time for me to be creative and make my own things. I was mainly tweaking other people’s art, occasionally designing a logo or event tee by request, but it never fed my craving to design or make my own stuff. All work and no play makes Mommy alone all day with a toddler very, very grumpy!

As we raise our daughter now, however, I’ve realized that it’s really fun coming up with DIY party favors for her birthdays or planning a mom-and-me craft or a photo backdrop design for the PTO fundraiser at her school or a Girl Scout event. Then there’s making our own Halloween costumes, fashion accessories, and of course tackling DIY home projects and decor for our new (old!) little house in the woods.