Hints from Heloise

Dear Readers: If a budding artist in your house has decided to try decorating your kitchen/office chalkboard with a crayon, don’t stress out. It can be fixed. Put a brown grocery bag over the crayon marks and carefully iron them with a warm iron, but don’t get the iron too hot.

You also can try sprinkling baking soda on a damp sponge or cloth and scrubbing until the marks are gone. If a stain still remains, you can buy chalkboard paint to make the surface new again. Call a few paint stores to find one that carries it. And while you’re in the kitchen, use baking soda to clean and deodorize a butcher block, microwave, sink drain, refrigerator and a zillion other things. For a copy of my six-page Baking Soda Hints and Recipes pamphlet, send $4 and a long, self-addressed, stamped (58 cents) envelope to: Heloise/Baking Soda, P.O. Box 795001, San Antonio, TX 78279-5001. In fact, you may never have to buy scouring powder again. – Heloise