Ruler Growth Chart!

Ignore the clutter on the counter, we have been sick and I was finally feeling up to doing something around the house......just not up to cleaning.   Go figure!

So, we have this wood trim in our house, lots of wood trim actually, but this one particular piece of wood is like a support column between our living room and our kitchen. 

 PJ decided it would be our growth chart for Lydia, so on her birthdays he has marked her height on the wood.  I am so glad he has taken this on, as I would have forgotten to do it until she was about 12 or 13.

I have seen these ruler growth charts on several websites.  I really like them, but I just wasn't thinking at all because we have a piece of wood that we are already using to measure Lydia.  I don't know why it never connected, but the other night while we were all recovering from our colds (laying around and watching non-stop episodes of Breaking Bad on Netflix) I saw this version on Pinterest.  The original can be found here.  Apparently it is a hack of something sold on Pottery Barn, in case you have more money than time.  

So I saw it on Pinterest, didn't bother to even look at the directions, and just dove right in.  I didn't even have a ruler to make my giant ruler (that might have made things even easier!) but I did have a sewing board with measurements on it.  I traced the measurements onto a piece of paper.  I wanted each foot to look like an inch on the ruler, so I decided I would make longer marks at 1/4 of a foot (3 inches), 1/2 of a foot (6 inches) and 3/4 of a foot (9 inches) and then a really long and thick mark at the 12 inch measurement.

I marked my paper at those measurements, but also put a small mark for each inch.  I did OK as long as I marked the 3,6,9, an 12 inch marks FIRST and then went back to mark the individual inches in between.  Every time that I tried to save a step and mark ALL the inches, I got goofed up and had too long a mark in the wrong place.  Fortunately, my mistakes were mostly at the bottom of the ruler where it is less noticeable.

This took something like 15 minutes.  I did a one inch line for each inch mark, a two inch line for the fourths, a three inch line for the half mark and a four inch line for the inch/foot mark.

Here is where I hesitated for about 5 minutes (so we are up to 20 minutes total so far). I knew I needed numbers on my ruler.  I knew they needed to look uniform and ruler-ish.  I felt like I should have taken my time and printed a template or something, but I also kind of felt like if I stopped I would never finish it.  I knew if I free-handed it I would get messy and be disappointed. So I compromised by making a square template and free-handed the numbers so that they fit in the square.  You could easily buy number stickers or print them on a printer and then trace them of you aren't feeling brave (or lazy) like me.

So, 25 minutes and a Sharpie marker later I have a ruler on the piece of wood where our growth chart already was.  I love it so much and I am SO happy that it turned out so nice and in so little time.  Lydia keeps running up to it and checking to see how tall she is. LOVE it!