The Best Ways to Get Crayon Off Floors and Walls: Hacks 101

Parenting isn’t easy. It is possibly (okay, definitely) the most difficult job in the world. You want your children to grow up balanced, healthy individuals with the right sensibilities and morals to guide them through their lives, and hopefully pass on the same values to their children. 

What does this mean for parents?

It means you have got to start early.

Sounds like an immense amount of pressure right?

Don’t worry, it’s stressful for all of us. When we had our little one, we didn’t realize the sheer number of daily challenges that would just pop up out of nowhere. 

You’re prepared for the diaper-changing stage, the early schooling stage, and you can sort of prepare for the sullen teenage stage… but what about all the million stages in between? What are they? What do you do with them? How do these tiny fingers and toes manage to create so much chaos? What are their innovative and completely free minds up to?

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Who has all the answers? Because we have a lot of questions.

Recently, we saw that our kid had taken to drawing on the floor. Our first reaction was to tell him to stop. No crayon marks on the floor please! Stop scribbling on every surface you can find! We need to know how to get crayon off our floors ASAP!

Then we thought about it… why do they do it? It’s clearly not just our kid, parents all around the world go through this stage with their children - and most parents decide to stop their kids and do as much as they can to get crayon off floors and walls in their home. 

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But, why? Why do kids love scribbling on walls and open surfaces like floors? And should we really be stopping them?

Why do Kids Love to Draw on Surfaces? The Psychology Behind It

Okay, don’t get scared. It’s not a Rorschach inkblot interpretation test. We were just trying to understand the why behind all of this wall scarring and home damage before we got to how to get crayon off floors and walls. For those of you who rent their homes, it could be a possible nightmare, right?

Let’s try to comprehend why it happens in the first place because we give them the sheets, the pencils, the crayons; we give them everything and they still choose the floor. 

Photo from Adobe Stock by Wilson. P

Rest assured, it is not their intention to damage your property. They don’t mean to wreak havoc wherever they go.

What you have to understand about your little ones is that they are unbridled sources of energy and creativity. They haven’t been told the norms yet, and to them everything is possible, and everything is wonderful (yes, we did get a little bit jealous writing that). 

So why would they choose to confine themselves to a small piece of paper when they have the entire wall and the floor in front of them, just waiting around, like a blank canvas? Why would they stop themselves?

The Importance of Creative Development for Children

Photo from Adobe Stock by New Africa

A lot of us adults face this issue. We wish to be creative and sometimes it comes to us, but many times, it feels like the juices just aren’t flowing. 

A possible reason for this could be because we weren’t encouraged to always think outside the box as kids in our generation. There were an absurd amount of restrictions put on us, and it really does have an impact on how we deal with problem solving and come up with creative solutions today.

Letting your children explore their creativity wholly and completely can help them develop a lot of very important skills that they will use later in life. Creative play is fundamental to a child’s emotional, cognitive, and motor development. If your child feels like they can express themselves truly by drawing on the surfaces around your house, let them! Let their imagination wander while it can, and harness their creativity to drive their growth. 

So… should you let them draw on floors and walls?

In case the answer wasn’t clear enough, it is a resounding yes! Let them express themselves in whatever way they feel comfortable. It is your job as a parent to provide them with the best learning environment, and this responsibility includes getting the crayon stains off the floor when they’re done.

Photo from Adobe Stock by winai

This is why we’re here. Not to teach you about parenting, of course, but to tell you the best ways you can go around cleaning up when your kids are done with their creative playtime.

How to Get Crayon off Floors and Walls Once Your Kids are Done

Let’s take it one step at a time. First we’ll start with the flooring and surfaces, and then we’ll move on to the walls.

We first went into panic mode when we saw crayon scribbles all over the floors in our home. Then we realized that instead of disciplining him, we should just clean it up ourselves, which then resulted in the question: 

How do we get crayon off the floor?

Of course, we tried multiple ways and listed them all out for you below. Since we have mainly tiled and wooden flooring in our home, we’ve tried our best to incorporate other tested methods into this list as well that cover different surface areas.

Getting Crayon off Vinyl Flooring

First step: Locate the stained areas on your flooring. 

Second step: Take out your handy all-purpose cleaner!

Third step: Get to scrubbing.

Use the all-purpose cleaning liquid you have in your house and spray it on the affected areas on your vinyl flooring. Take a kitchen towel and wipe the surface clean. Now, it wholly depends on what crayons your kid is using, but we found that this was simply not enough. 

Photo from Adobe Stock by Ameashi

It lightened the stain, but the glaring marks still stared back at us. We had to use dishwashing liquid mixed with warm water and a kitchen scrubber to get rid of the stains. It took us around 30 minutes to clean completely.

Getting Crayon off Wooden Flooring

First step: Get your handy dishwashing liquid and warm water solution ready.

Second step: Bring out your kitchen scrubber.

Third step: Get to scrubbing.

We found a variety of different ways to get crayon off the wooden floor, but once again, the dishwashing liquid and warm water solution worked out the best. It is a trusted and reliable method used to get stains off of nearly every surface, and worked for the wooden flooring as well. The only issue with this is how tiring and time consuming it is.

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Getting Crayon off Tiles

First step: Again, get the dishwashing liquid out…

You catch the drift, right?

Now, let’s move on to the walls!

Getting Crayon off Walls

Photo from Adobe Stock by Татьяна Кутина

You have to be careful here. You don’t want to use a product that is too harsh and can end up damaging the paint on your walls. 

So how do you get the darned crayon off the wall if you can’t use your dishwashing liquid?!

We have a few home remedies listed out!

• Baking Soda Solution: Here’s another popular cleaning agent, right after the dishwashing liquid. Create a paste using baking soda and water, and use your kitchen scrubber and get the scrubbing going.

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• Your Favorite Condiment, Mayonnaise: Yes, you read that right. It’s not just to add to your sandwiches. You can take your handy tub of mayonnaise out of the fridge, lather it on to your walls, and let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes, and then wipe it all off with a damp cloth. It sounds unbelievable, but it works!

There is a science behind it. Mayonnaise consists of oils which, when applied to the crayon-infected area on your wall, helps break down the oils in the crayon. So when you wipe it off, it becomes easier to remove the stain without damaging the paint. Just remember to stay away from walls that have been painted with a matte or flat finish or else you’ll just end up spreading grease around your wall.

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• Well, the more you know… you can use your hair dryer too: This is only recommended for use in small areas of the wall that have crayon stains on them. It definitely will not help you clear out canvas-sized artwork, courtesy of your children. Apply heat using your hair dryer to the area with the crayon marks on your wall, and wait for the wax in the crayon to melt. Simply wipe off the remainders with a dry cloth after. Ta-da!

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There are some other methods which use vinegar, but we don’t recommend using those because it might damage the paint on your walls. There isn’t any point in taking such careful measures if you aren’t going to end up with a pristine sheen on your surface!

There Has to be an Easier Way Out of This

And there is! We realized most, if not all the remedies for removing crayon off floors required a lot of scrubbing. It’s a waste of time and effort. We decided to save up on that energy for our kid and we took out Skadu to try it out and see if it worked. 

It did, and it did so spectacularly!  

It made our lives so much easier once we found out that most of the answers lie in efficient scrubbing. The hand-held power scrubber did the job in no time. 

We weren’t exhausted, we weren’t annoyed, and now we know that our kid can play around as much as he likes with crayons without any hassle for us, the very tired (but enthusiastic) parents.

Are There Any Other Ways You Can Encourage Your Child and Not Lose Your Mind Cleaning Up After Them?

Photo from Adobe Stock by New Africa

Of course! You can also get washable crayons that can come off all surfaces with little to no effort without damaging the paint or the floors or the thousand other surfaces your child has decided to turn into a canvas today. 

Another thing parents can do is assign areas where their child is allowed to explore their creativity, and use writable wall paint to create a chalkboard or whiteboard surface of their own.

You also get stick-on material that you can place on walls and surfaces that can be easily removed. You can find them online or at your local supermarket too. It really could be that simple, parents.

There are always ways around cleaning up after your children, especially when they are toddlers who are just starting to learn about their environment. So let your kids be kids and let them have some fun while they’re young!

TL,DR:

Photo created by Hyper Lychee