Bette Nesmith Graham fluid as "Mistake Out" in 1956. The name was later changed to Liquid Paper when she began her own company. Mistake Out started the 1960s operating at a small loss, with Nesmith's home doubling as company headquarters. As the product became an indispensable tool of the secretarial trade, Nesmith relocated production and shipping from her kitchen to a 10 feet-by-26 feet portable metal structure in her backyard, where packaging, shipping, and production were centered. Bette Nesmith married Robert Graham in 1962; he joined her in running the company. They divorced in 1975. She sold Liquid Paper to the Gillette Corporation
Bette Nesmith Graham bank. She realized, as she said, "with lettering, an artist never corrects by erasing, but always paints over the error. So I decided to use what artists use. I put some tempera water-based paint in a bottle and took my watercolor brush to the office. I used that to correct my mistakes." Graham secretly used her white correction paint for five years, making some improvements with help from her son's chemistry teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas. Some bosses admonished her against using it, but coworkers frequently sought her "paint out". She eventually began marketing her typewriter correction