DIY Solutions For Kids' Mess

Audra Lowe: You love the kids so much but the frustration really sets in when they color on the walls, get glue on the carpet or spill a drink on the keyboard but thankfully, there are some easy solutions to those problems and a lot more. Kristine Solomon is the editor of the AOL’s DIY Life and she’s here to help us out. Good to have you here Kristine.

Kristine Solomon: Thanks for having me.

Audra Lowe: So, obviously you’ve been through these scenarios. You’ve seen a lot.

Kristine Solomon: Yes. I have a niece and a nephew but I also remember things that I used to do as a child. One of the primary things that kids do around the house is color and sometimes, they want to color the walls.

Audra Lowe: They think it’s the canvass, right?

Kristine Solomon: Exactly.

Audra Lowe: A lot of times, parents will use as scrubber and that makes it worst, right?

Kristine Solomon: Yes, especially if you have painted walls, you want to be careful with finish.

Audra Lowe: Okay.

Kristine Solomon: The best thing to do when you have crayon in the wall is to take a straight razor. You want something with a very sharp edge. You don’t want to use a knife.

Audra Lowe: Okay, so what are you doing? Can you show me up against the colorings?

Kristine Solomon: Yeah, you actually hold this at a 45 degree angle and you scrape away as much of the crayon as you can and it will little actually lift up the wax. You’ll notice that there is a residue left behind and you shouldn’t freak out because this starts to come off any type of finish. What you need to do is take baking soda and mix it with water. You want to create a toothpaste-like consistency. And then you’re going to take a microfiber cloth. Microfiber cloths are great for cleaning because they don’t leave any link behind. You’ll dip it in to the paste and you’ll actually rub away the residue.

Audra Lowe: You just put that right over this space, right? This could take a while if that drawing that they’ve made is just pretty big, right?

Kristine Solomon: Yeah, well, you’d be surprised how quickly the laser takes off the crayon. It comes right off.

Audra Lowe: All right, that sounds good. Let’s move on to the next one here. Well, this is wood. Sometimes the kids will use something and they will scrape and then color of a spot out on the wood floors.

Kristine Solomon: Yes. So, what you should do with superficial scratches is if you have dark wood, you’ll want to take an eyebrow pencil or a crayon. I actually made some scratches here that mimic accidental scratch that kids might make. You’re actually going to color it in and obviously, this isn’t getting rid of the scratch but it’s covering it up.

Audra Lowe: So, once you do that --

Kristine Solomon: Once you do that, you’re taking your microfiber cloth, again, one of the best all purpose tools for the home.

Audra Lowe: Okay.

Kristine Solomon: And you’re going to buff that scratch and you’re actually getting the crayon in the pencil into the scratch.

Audra Lowe: Right.

Kristine Solomon: So, it’s camouflaging the scratch.

Audra Lowe: Yeah, amazing.

Kristine Solomon: It’s not actually covering it up but it’s camouflaging enough so that they’re not able to see it.

Audra Lowe: Now, the carpet. Let’s say that they got gum on the carpet or glue, very quickly the gum. Let’s say it’s been sitting here for a little a while, what do you do?

Kristine Solomon: Yes. The gum you actually want to harden, you don’t want to soften it.

Audra Lowe: And that’s why you have ice cubes here, right?

Kristine Solomon: Yes, you’re going to take ice cubes in this zip-loc, hold it there for about 10 minutes to freeze the gum. And then when you remove it, you’re going to a butter knife or some sort of dull utensil and lift the gum up. It should come up in one bit piece.

Audra Lowe: And it hardens it, so that’s obviously easier to get it out, right?

Kristine Solomon: Yes, you want to make the gum harder not softer.

Audra Lowe: Now, what about the glue because that seems like you could pack it up once they put glue in.

Kristine Solomon: Yeah but you actually, again, should not freak out about this because glue, you’re going take the opposite method that you did with the gum, you’re actually going to make the glue wet again.

Audra Lowe: Paper towel on top here.

Kristine Solomon: We’re laying a paper towel over it.

Audra Lowe: Okay.

Kristine Solomon: Running a hot iron over it. You can do it at about medium heat for about five minutes and the glue actually absorb back into the paper towel.

Audra Lowe: Fantastic! I like that.

Kristine Solomon: Yeah. And if there is anything left, you can just pick it out with microfiber cloth and baby oil.

Audra Lowe: You and the microfiber cloth, I love that. I’m going to buy one of those things now.

Kristine Solomon: It is excellent for everything.

Audra Lowe: Kristine, thank you so much. Good to have you here.

Kristine Solomon: Thank you so much.