DIY Ruler Growth Chart

You've probably all seen the cool giant ruler growth charts that are out there. Chad and I saw one for sale at Kirklands but at 39.99 (which is way cheaper than how much it is from pottery barn), we knew we could make it for much less. There are tons of tutorials on pinterest that I browsed through and then just did a combination of several of those when I made mine.

This is by no means a fancy tutorial, it's just the steps that I took to make mine =)

We started with a 1x8x6 board that we bought at Lowes. I think it was around $8.00. We used some stain (Minwax aged oak gel) that was leftover from another project. We gave the board two coats of stain on all sides.

Once it was dry I got to marking the lines. I used a yardstick, pencil and chisel tip sharpie marker. I went up the board and marked a little tick mark at every inch with a pencil. I originally printed out a template of the lines, but it was quicker just to mark with a pencil and yardstick.

I knew that the board would be hanging off the ground some so I started the marks at 6 inches. Then I used my ruler and a chisel tip sharpie to mark two 1" lines and then one 2" line (so the longer lines mark every quarter of a foot). Mini kit-kats to snack on are optional ;-)

For the numbers I printed out 1-6 in Century font (I think it was around 100pt). Then I cut  each number out (leave about a 1/2" around the number). I rubbed a pencil all along the back of the number, then laid it down on my board (pencil rubbed side down) and traced around the outline. That gave me a pencil outline on my board which I then went over with a fine point felt tip pen.

Then I used the chisel tip marker to color in each number. I know I could have made stencils, etc. but the pencil rubbing technique worked just fine and didn't take too much time.

And, here it is! I'm still trying to decide if I want to put our last name initial at the top of the board and then it needs to be hung! I love the way it turned out and I look forward to having a special place to mark Kinley and Emery's growth through the years!