To go back to the drawing board means that you tried to do something and you failed so you need to start over and possibly change something with your original plan or design to make sure the next attempt is a success. 1. These Christmas cards didn't come out the way we wanted them to and I am afraid that people are going to be insulted by the design actually. We need to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better looking and less offensive design. 2. We recorded a language lesson last night on how to use the words "can" and "could" but we found that we made several grammar errors during the recording and that we didn't cover all the uses. We will be going back to the drawing board... possibly including more uses or discussing another word or grammar point instead if we can't figure out how to make this better and more useful for English language learners. To start from scratch means to start from nothing or to start from the very beginning. 1. Whenever I make a cheesecake, I start from scratch. I make the crust myself instead of buying one pre-made from the grocery store, and I make my own filling too.