Don't Fix Those Googly Eyes
When I was in high school I took an education course that allowed me to spend half my days at my school and half the day volunteering a local elementary school. For someone who loved teaching and children it was the best course offered my senior year. The first class I helped in was Kindergarten. One of my favorite things was leading the craft station, and at Christmas we made penguin ornaments with googly eyes.
Now these adorable kids saw that my example penguin has two perfectly lined up eye balls, but their penguins had eyes all over. It happens, they're still working on those fine motor skills, and laying two small eyes perfectly on the penguin was not a requirement. However, later after class, the teachers assistant started peeling off the uneven eyes and fixing them. She was too focused on the product and not the process.
Process over product.
The process of creating, of getting their hands dirty, of feeling or trying something new is MOST important. That is how a child's mind grows. Each process teaches them, or helps them continue to develop, some new concept. Spreading paint all over the picture lets them feel how smooth it is, how easy it is to move across the paper, even past the lines. The long drawn out story, that has clearly crossed the line into fiction, is growing their imagination even though you just asked how their weekend was. The uneven eyes on a penguin ornament show the effort in the process of creating it.
So don't be afraid of the process. Choose the activity that will likely get messy. Choose to listen to that long story and appreciate the big imagination behind it. Choose to attempt activities you know they won't complete perfectly but have an engaging process. It's so easy to want that perfect Pinterest product some other child made, but enjoy the imperfect one your child makes. The process that created it was important.