Saturday, June 20, 2009

crap ...

anyone know how to get glued on pictures off painted walls?

We're having a festival here today apparently.  A Celtic festival in fact.  I wanted to go to the Scarf Festival at the Wool Museum but Lily decided that a Celtic festival at home was more her thing. I don't think she was keen on changing out of her rather odd outfit.

So she set about making the decorations for the festival, while I finished unpacking from our visit to the pint household (is it only me that it seems to take a week to unpack everything after I've been away?)  Lily's decoration creations were being supervised by her not so observant father. I realised something was going down when I heard him ask her not to draw on the walls. It seems she had got a little carried away with the decorating, "It was a little accident," I'm assured. Thank goodness for Crayola textas and their washability.
Later she tells me she had another little accident with the decorating after I find some random bits of paper glued to the TV cabinet.  It seems she ran out of blue tac and had to glue all her pictures and decorations to the wall.  *oops*   As Lily quite rightly points out, she didn't know she wasn't allowed to glue things on the wall. I mean, I've never actually said, "Don't glue things to the wall", have I?   
So does anyone have any ideas on how to remove these stunning artworks without too much hassle and without removing the paint? *sigh*

12 comments:

  1. I have no idea how to get the glue off, but how fabulous is she making those festive decorations :) a scarf festival sounds rather fabulous too!

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  2. oh dear! and here i was assuming you were referring to the painting with that "crap" lol

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  3. Oh dear. This seems like something my 3.5 year old would think to do. I'm adding "Don't clue things to the walls" to my list of things to tell him.

    If you don't want to preserve the artwork, I would probably gently tear around the edges, use some water to wet the remaining paper until it crumbles off and then try goo gone to get the glue off.

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  4. oh dear!

    I second wetting the paper until it's easy to peel off, then using something (not sure what - we use something that gets sticky residue off stuff, called "goo-off" or something like that, not sure how it would affect paint though) to get the glue off the wall.

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  5. Great decorations Lily :). We had a similar incident in our house awhile ago and assuming she doesn't want to keep them (or take more photos to kep them that way) we 'painted' over them with water until nice and soggy and then peeled them off. This was with clag and our walls are not very precious. Good luck and I hope you make it to the scarf festival another day.

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  6. Oh Hah. Both my children did this. Clearly my "dont do that" instructions didn't make sense. Or some arty kids just gotta do stuff. What I did was, left it there for a few weeks - some of it just lifted right off because the clag or glue stick had completely dried away and didn't have much stickiness left. The rest I sponged off with a wet cloth - slow and steady.

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  7. Hmmm, well I'd check your insurance policy ;)
    There was NO way of cleaning up the cooking oil madam 2 poured all over our couch and carpet.

    Though, you may well have better luck with Lily's art :)

    Look forward to the update!

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  8. Georgie, my husbeast has suggested that you try to heat the glue with a hairdryer which may soften/melt the glue enough to get it off and he says if that doesn't work try steam from your iron.

    and if none of that works I say leave em it's decorative, it a feature and a talking point for visitors :)

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  9. My husband is a painter and he said get a rag, pull off excess paper then lightly dab at glue with rag covered in turps. Don't rub vigourisly though.

    It all depends on the glue though. Kids clag paste should come off with lots of water (or even disposable nappy wipes, it's amazing what they will get off)

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  10. oh dear! So cute though!! Bet you couldn't be mad :P

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