Friday 15 June 2012

New use for Promarkers

I am always trying to find new uses for my supplies. This was an unexpected one.

My son and his friends wanted to make some "arts & crafts". I thought some leaf printing could be something fun and not too messy. The idea is to gather some leaves, paint them and them press the leaves to paper so you are left with leaf imprint.

I just went and gathered some acrylic paint, got the boys to get some leaves in the back garden and happily they spent about 1/2 hour. So did I.

Later I noticed that my son's tracksuit top was covered in pink acrylic paint. I had the feeling it would not wash out that easily. And it didn't, all the paint was still there after a 40 degree wash.

I googled "remove acrylic paint" and the first hit was an entry in Claudine Hellmuth's blog. I was pleased, if anybody should know, it was her. She recommended rubbing alcohool. Which I didn't have. I went to the liquor cabinet and found vodka. (Yes, you can roll your eyes now). Until it hit me that I could try Promakers, as they are alcohool based. I had a blender promarker, which is colourless. As soon as I rubbed the marker on the dried paint, it became wet again. I scribbled over all the paint marks, put the tracksuit back in the wash and it came clean! Eureka!

3 comments:

Sabrina said...

Well, who knew!! I don't have pro-markers but I do have blending alcohol and I'm going to try this on a sweatshirt I was about to throw out. Because yes, once acrylic has set, water will not ever remove it!! I thought you were going to describe how you'd ended up using markers to colour the leaves for making prints!!

minerva said...

You are a life saver - have an acrylic paint spattered pink party dress that I have not washed as I knew it wouldn't come out. Now it will. Yay!

Pauline said...

Wow Elisa, that's a fabulous tip!!