Crayon Removal

So, here I am a mom who also happens to be an author (trust me, the other way around is different!). I think I've mentioned before that I'm kinda a "jack of all trades, master of none" kind of a gal.

So, yesterday, I was exercising one of my 'trades.' I can sing pretty well. I'm not a superstar, by any means, but I'm a bit better than the average joe (my, I'm using a lot of clichés today). My neighbor came over for voice lessons. I was excited because it's the first one I've taught and she was excited because she wanted to take voice lessons (and I offered it for free until they can figure out if they can pay me or not). She has kids pretty close in age to mine and our kids were playing together GREAT! Too great...

Yes, this lovely art was found on every all in each of the kids bedrooms about two feet up from the ground. My little girl was very excited to tell me about her "Halloween Pumpkin Picture." I managed to keep it together, I had company after all, and proceeded to finish the voice lesson. There would still be crayon on the walls when we were done. Then I turned to my friends on facebook.

The number one way people recommended to get rid of this was with a magic eraser. I don't have any, but I put it one my grocery list. I hoped something else would come up since those are expensive and I worried it would strip the paint from my walls (I'm renting right now).

Number two was with crest toothpaste. Apparently, you apply some to your fingers and scrub. I DO have toothpaste (yeah me!) and tried that one. It worked better scrubbing with a toothbrush, but it wasn't really as effective or fast as I would have liked. I'm a bit on the lazy side sometimes.

Number three (and only one person mentioned this) was to put a towel against the wall and run a blow dryer over it. I tried this one also. I blow dried the wall and used a dry wash cloth to wipe the crayon off. And glorious days it worked!

It only took about two minutes of combine blow drying and wiping for this one spot. But you can see the results. I was soooooo happy! In about twenty minutes, I had warmed up and wiped off the crayon in ALL the rooms (okay, there's one spot behind the dresser that I missed yesterday, but I'll get to it). Highly recommend this! It was easy and it was cheap. But don't use your favorite washcloth. My sage colored washcloth is now a Crayola colorbox of colors.

This morning I did notice a faint tinge of color on the walls, but only if you stand in the right play with the light hitting it just so. I figure it will wipe off with my annual wall cleaning (annual...hahah! Like how I threw that in there like I actually wipe my walls once a year?). ;) Good luck!

On a fun side note, when my neighbor and I were doing sirens for a voice warm-up, we soon had five little kids running circles around us making fire truck noises. My one year old has a very piercing squeal. But they loved it. And at dinner time, all of my kids were doing vocal warm-ups again. I'm kind of a proud Jack Momma.

Paper Bag Monsters

I did some babysitting not that long ago. I knew it was going to be several hours long, so I tried planning ahead--I didn't want them to sit the entire time in front of the tv, but I also knew that they wouldn't play outside the entire time (it ended up being about 6 hours). I also had things inside that I still needed to do. So I came up with a quick, easy craft that all the kids could do and then play with.

 These two (above) were done by the 2 and 3 year old. The three (below) were done by a 4, 10, and 7 year old.

They spent about a half hour on the paper bag monsters and would have kept going if I hadn't needed to start making dinner. The paper bags are just the sandwich bags you can get at the grocery store (less than $2 for 50 of them). I had pipe cleaners, glue, crayons, markers, paper, safety scissors, tape, and googly eyes on hand already.

So give it a shot! Get some bags, put them in front of your kids with supplies, and let them at it!