silly Silly Putty

Silly putty. Fun stuff. Until it's ground deep into your carpet.

Why, yes, we do have two separate spots with two different colors of silly putty embedded into the carpet in our playroom. It happens. Well, it happened to us. But things are looking better now!

Two methods that I found online to clean silly putty off carpet: rubbing alcohol or WD40. I had both, so I tried 'em both.

EXHIBIT A: Bright Orange 

I poured rubbing alcohol over the stain.

I rubbed it in well.

After letting it sit for 10 minutes (as was recommended) things were not looking too great. I used dish soap and water (also recommended) and rubbed for quite a while with no luck.

I tried just spraying regular carpet cleaner on it and scrubbing again.

Boo!

This actually looked worse than when I started, so I just sighed and moved over to

EXHIBIT B: Lime Green

It's been there a while, so it doesn't look quite as fresh. Still, it's green silly putty on the carpet.

This time, I tried the WD40. I am so weird, but I love this stuff. I am always secretly hoping doors around here start creaking so I can spray it around. Anyway. I sprayed it on the stain.

Rubbed it in with a damp washcloth.

Then, scrubbed with dish soap and water. SO MUCH BETTER.

Back on over at EXHIBIT A, I sprayed it with WD40 this time.

Rubbed it in with soap and water and...

SAH-WEET!

After 2 hours, then vacuuming..

Lime green spot:

Orange spot:

Still not perfect, but it is certainly better.

I hope you never find yourself in a (couple of) silly putty situation(s), but if you do, there is still hope! And if you don't have WD40, you can always borrow mine. Just return it quickly before a hinge goes rusty. 

The moral of the story is: don't leave children alone with silly putty.