Growth Chart Ruler


Before we moved, we measured our kids on the laundry room wall every few months.
Nothing special, just a little line and their initial with their height and date.
When we moved, my husband entered the kids growth in an excel spreadsheet.
Because that's what engineers do, yo.

My kids aren't growing quite as quickly as they once were, so I knew I had some time to figure out a new solution for measuring the kids at our new house.
When I saw this ruler at Dear Lillie, I knew I had to make one myself.


I asked my husband to do the construction and he wanted details.
So I sent him a tutorial.

He recruited the younger two kids and set to work.
They took nails and hammers and started distressing the boards while I was at a PTA meeting.



Yep, their in their jammies.


My husband realizes how important pictures are to my blog posting, so he had the kids snap some pictures of him doing the construction.


Once he finished the construction I set to work painting the boards.
One of my favorite mixtures that I use is to paint is this dark brown paint from Michaels (you can find it in the paint section.  It was $7 but well worth it because it's lasted so long) mixed with mineral spirits.
You don't need much, just a squeeze of paint and about a tsp of mineral spirits.


It's the same paint combination I used on my pottery barn typewriter art knock off.


I really like how the color went on.
The kids did a great job of distressing the wood and the paint landed in all the right places.


The next part was a little intimidating to me since I am not known to be a perfectionist in my work.
My husband, however, is, and wanted the ruler to be as accurate as it could be.
I had him draw me up the measurements, and he left me with new knowledge of how to use a square.
I used my Silhouette machine to cut three different sizes of lines in vinyl.  


I had 1" lines, 1.5" lines and 2" lines.
I would put two 1" lines down, then one 1.5" line, then two 1" lines, then one 1.5" line and repeat the process.  At every foot, I would use a 2 inch line.



Once I was done, I put the board up against the wall.
The initial intention was to hang the growth chart in our laundry room six inches up just above our molding.
After leaning it against the wall, my husband realized he really liked it leaning and not mounted.
However, this now threw the numbers off.





So I took the numbers off, cut new ones and placed everything down six inches.
The 6 foot mark ends up being right at the very top, but that's o.k. because no one in our family has any hope of reaching that line!


It was a tedious process, but I really like how it turned out.
Bonus, it can move with us!
So when our kids have kids, we can use it to compare their heights to their parents.
But that's going to be at least 25 years from now, because our daughter can't date until she's 35!



My oldest son is now nearly as tall as I am.
Shocking moment as a mom when you can see eye to eye!

I even made one for my sister in law in exchange for them watching our dog while we were in Disneyland.
It's grey and white and isn't meant to start on the floor.
It's actually to be hung 8 inches up.


How do you keep a record of your kids growth?

12 comments

Lianna said...

I LOVE this! We marked our oldest's growth on the wall at our old house...then, we moved! Bad idea since it couldn't move with us. So this will be great and...like you said...movable! I'm so going to make this. I'm adding it to my list of 326 other projects I have lined up...ugh!

Kyra @ RACKS and Mooby said...

I made one of these for my kiddos last year - we all love it! http://racksandmooby.blogspot.com/2011/03/diy-growth-chart.html

Yours is great!

Christine said...

Love it! Would you be willing to share your Silhouette file with me? hicks_family@sbcglobal.net
Christine

Unknown said...

I so LOVE this!

Delightfully Curious Designs said...

I AM SO HAPPY TO HAVE FOUND YOU, I JUST ENTERED A CONTEST ON DEAR LILLIE THIS MORNING BECAUSE MY NIECE IS HAVING A BABY THIS FALL, BUT I NEVER WIN, SO I CAN MAKE HER ONE MYSELF!! HANKS FOR SHARING!! AND BTW, LOVE THE POTTERY BARN KNOCK OFF AS WELL!!

Jill said...

I LOVE this idea! We have the very old school way of marking heights on the wall with a pen and ruler. :) I *think* we live in our forever house so I really love the idea of having all the marks on the wall just as my childhood home had. :)

Lauren said...

Love this! We do the door frame thing on the girls' bedroom door. I don't mind that it's there lightly in pencil. I loved going in my parents' bathroom as a kid and seeing how much I'd grown. Thankfully, my parents live in the same house as I grew up in, but if they ever move, I know my mom will be very sad that it isn't something she could carry with her to the next house. Going to have to get a growth chart or something that I can move with us when we outgrow our current home. Thanks for the idea.

I hope you'll link up at Off the Hook

Amy said...

I love this! I want to make one as a gift for my friend that has twin boys. They are almost two. I am a new follower!

Amanda said...

This turned out awesome! And what a great gift - I'm thinking even for a baby shower.

Heidi said...

What a clever idea, and it is quite stylish! One question though, what do you use to mark on the ruler for the kids height? Marker or ???

Unknown said...

I bought a piece of wood and stained it and then tried to spray paint the numbers on with stencils but it didn't work so well. The paint spread under the stencils a bit because the scotch tape holding the stencils down didn't stick very well to the stained wood. Do you find your silhouette numbers and lines stick alright to your wood? Do you think it works because you didn't use stain or because those are more sticky than scotch tape? I want to redo my board on the backside but I haven't decided how I want to do it yet.

Christine said...

Just found you via Hometalk. I'm not into crafty things, but I wanted to tell you how very cool I think this is!
I can't tell, but did you mark your kids' growth on the ruler as time passed?
We had this on door moulding in the house I grew up in. The hardest thing for my mom to leave when she moved was that piece of moulding. Who knew!
Really nice job.

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