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How to Remove Permanent Ink from a Project

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by Noreen Doll.

I love to use Sharpies for my craft projects! They have such bright colors and are so easy to use – much easier than a brush.

They come with fat, medium or fine tips, so you can find the perfect size for your project.

Sometimes, however, when I am deep into a craft my pen slips and I leave a blotch of ink where I didn’t mean to.


I’ve discovered that if you use some alcohol on a paper towel right away, you can remove the Sharpie ink (and possibly other brands of inks – though I haven’t tried them).

Trash Bag Ghost
Trash Bag Ghost

This works on plastic, metal, and ceramic tiles – non porous surfaces. It might also work on wood that has been sealed so the ink can’t soak in.

For fabric that is already ruined because of the ink, you might try really saturating the stain in alcohol and rubbing it in.  Then add some Dawn dish detergent before washing.  I haven’t tried this, but it might work.

So next time you have an oops with a Sharpie, try the alcohol trick to see if you can correct it.

If not, perhaps you can make the oops part of your design.

Noreen Doll

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  7. That IS a good tip. I had a college professor tell me once that we could never use an eraser or erase a “mistake” in art. God doesnt make mistakes and neither does an artist, we had to incorporate it into our design.. so that was a challenge. I kind of like your idea better. LOL
    Diane
    treasuringgrace.blogspot.com

  17. Thanks for sharing such a great & helpful hint! Who hasn’t had this mishap…lol! I do know that on plastics, you can actually use a sharpie to go over something you’ve already written on with a sharpie & you can wipe it all off — one sharpie kind of dissolves the previous sharpie writing. We do this all the time on a plastic container that we use for all of our vitamins & medications, so if we change to a different script, we just take a sharpie and scribble over the old writing & then wipe with a paper towel & write a new label.

  18. I think I’ve noticed that writing over Sharpie dissolves it, but it sort of didn’t register. Thanks for the tip.

    Noreen

  19. Thanks for reminding me of this. There was a blot on the corner of a printed scarf I bought yesterday. With the alcohol and Dawn treatment last night it seems to have come completely out, yay!

  21. Thanks, Michele, for letting us know alcohol can remove Sharpie from fabric. That’s a great thing for crafters to be aware of, since many of us use Sharpies a lot.

    Noreen

  22. I used toothpaste on a wood floor last week for purple crayola marker and it came out great!! Little elbow grease and a time out for the culprit little boy,but all in all it worked!

    Thank you for the great tip!!

  24. Good to know. I am always working with these on my painted furniture projects when I need some finer details. The oops’s are inevitable. Thanks for sharing on BeColorful.
    p

  25. Hairspray also works for getting inks off fabric. I keep a can of cheap hairspray in the cabinet in the laundry room!

  28. Thanks for the tip. And Thanks so much for linking up at I Gotta Create! <3 Christina

  35. Thanks for sharing this in the Bowdabra Crafty Showcase! I know that we are all always using sharpies! Super tip and I loved reading the other comments and tips that came in, too!

  40. This is another great tip. Your whole website is such a wealth of information! Thanks for passing it along to the rest of us. Thanks also for stopping by my blog. Have a great day!

    Debbie

  41. This is a great tip! I goof all the time using sharpies…glad to know that there’s a fix! I love your tip on sharpening punches also, I have them sitting in a drawer because they just don’t work as well as they used to. I know what I am doing tomorrow! Thanks so much.

  42. I got orange sharpie off a cream upholstered sofa by copious amounts of a combination of nail polish remover and elbow grease. I was able to slip plastic between the foam and the fabric so that the acteone didn’t disolve the foam. It worked great, but the 12 year old neighbor who drew a smily face on my sofa is no longer welcome in my house

  43. Here’s a comment I received from one of my readers:

    “I just read your post on removing Sharpie. I have also found that if you go over the Sharpie with a BLACK (only color I have found to work) dry erase marker it wipe right off. I found this out when I tried drawing boxes in Sharpie to help students keep their math problems lined up and all my work was wiped away along with their answers. This was an AMAZING discovery because I had tried all the commercial & homemade sprays (including alcohol) to remove Sharpie from my overhead projector and films. Substitutes would always write on the overhead with permanent marker. Even when I would hide every Sharpie in the room, somehow they would get their hands on one. One of the MANY unsolved mysteries I have encountered while teaching.”
    Randa Hiemke

  45. A product called “Shout” took ballpoint pen ink out of my daughter’s nurse white smock. I did not try it on a Sharpie mark.

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