Doodle on the Fridge

Relax, take a deep breath - it's dry erase markers! We know, we had a mini-stroke too when we first saw this photo of Nikki's daughters happily doodling on her fridge and then we realized what a fantastic idea this was for kids of all ages.

Nikki, who writes WhiMSy Love, used the lure of writing on the fridge to encourage her daughters to practice their homework and she suggests using the fridge as a family message center or calendar (we're thinking grocery list, too). This might be a great way to keep younger kids occupied while you cook or clean the kitchen.

As a renter we were slightly hesitant to write on our fridge, but we tested a few small marks in a hard-to-see spot and we can report that it works like a charm. It's a simple yet brilliant idea which is making us feel slightly idiotic for, at this very moment, having a dry-erase board hanging on our fridge.

Thanks Nikki! (Don't forget to check out her cardboard bedroom suite!)

Comments (11)

My parents let us do that when we lived at home so I thought I would let my kids do it on our fridge. My fridge is older and has texture to it and it stained it. I've tried everything, including the magic eraser and it won't come off. I now have my kids' names in red and black permanantly on our fridge so I would recommend testing it out first.

I let my children draw on our freezer we keep in the basement and I also write the contents of the freezer on the door. However, several months ago we got an extra fridge to keep in the basement as well and I let the children write all over it as well. It stained the new fridge and while I was able to get it off it was a lot of work (and a lot of panic!).

On our freezer we use the dry eraser markers that have magnets on them. That way they stay on the fridge!

bummer that we've got a stainless steel fridge... that looks awesome!

i've got a few friends who draw on their bathroom mirrors with dry-erase markers and it works perfectly. (don't we all have moments of brilliance getting ready in the morning that we lose as soon as we leave the bathroom?)

We always wrote on our windows and mirrors as kids. the markers always stained our fridge.

Have you tried rubbing alcohol to get the stains off? That seems work for us.

My husband is allergic to chalk dust so I'm so excited to do this in our new house. Plus there's no wall space for message boards. Thanks so much for this idea!

@islandnatalie

You must get liquid chalk markers. They are fabulous and no dust. Crayola makes dry erase crayons and they work well too. Plus no nasty smell.

Related note: we had a casual dinner party a while back, and I was keeping a few dishes warming on the stove top. I used dry erase marker on the enamel to label what was on each burner. (And to caution that the burners were on!)

We painted our fridge with chalkboard paint and we love it! Our fridge looked pretty crappy before, so we decided to paint it as we were planning on getting a new one eventually anyway, but we will probably paint all our future fridges in chalkboard paint from here on out because it's just so awesome!

WARNING!!! This only works on SMOOTH surface appliances!

Don't try this on the "orange peel" or any other textured surface ones. The dry ease ink somehow gets stuck down there and won't come up even with alcohol.

I read something about this a few months ago elsewhere and I thought it was perfect but my husband was skeptical and researched it first and read reports of it staining. Finally we decided to test it out on a corner of the fridge first and thank goodness we did! The marks wiped away if you got to them quickly but if you left them for more than an hour or so they stained!

We used alcohol and even acetone and there's still a dark shadow on the enamel.

Here's a page devoted to other people trying to get dry erase ink off their fridges. http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf52948889.tip.html

Since then we just bought a big board and glued magnets to the back and mounted it on the front of the fridge instead. Works great.