Distressed - Part II

Evidently, when I wrote my last post on distressed wood a couple weeks ago, I wasn't aware that Daniel had additional wood working talents. On top of being a cosmetic wood designer, Daniel also has incredible wood staining abilities. Take a look:

So here's the rest of the story:

Yvonne was out running errands and I was home with the boys. I had a 10am conference call to make so I set up my laptop on the kitchen counter, had my hands free bluetooth headset on, and got the boys busy with some stickers and a TV show. What could possibly go wrong? I was about ten minutes into the conference call when I heard the words most feared in the Hsiung household, "Uh Oh Daddy".

I turned around to see Daniel holding a black PERMANENT Sharpie pen and the new artwork on the kitchen table....oh boy. I stayed calm, relied on my years of training to work in critical incident environments, and summed up all of my life experience to figure out the best thing to do for the moment: I licked my finger and tried to rub off the marker....no luck...not even a smudge.

With the conference call in one ear and Daniel in the background "Look Daddy...I draw!" my other cell phone rings and it's Yvonne. "...Hey Hon, you're not going to believe this one..." I kid you not, when I told her what had happened she just laughed and wasn't the least bit startled. Here I am...trying to sound calm on the conference call while frantically doing a Google search on "Permanent marker removal tips" and supermom on the other line is laughing. She hangs up to let me deal with the situation and after finding some tips, I find out the situation isn't as bad as I first thought. Turns out permanent markers aren't that permanent after all. A pencil eraser actually does a pretty good job removing the ink from smooth surfaces.

I called Yvonne a few minutes later all proud saying that the pencil eraser trick (as if I thought of it by myself) was working but would take time because the eraser was so small. Yvonne then suggests I use the "magic eraser" under the kitchen sink and walks me through how to use it. The instructions are probably second nature to moms everywhere but this was all new to me. I listened carefully and had her repeat it just to make sure I didn't miss anything: 1) get the sponge wet and 2) wipe up the ink. Lo and behold, it worked like a charm. According to Yvonne, she uses this thing all the time to get ink and crayon marks off the walls and stuff. Like I said...supermom.