Ruler Growth Chart

Published: June 9, 2011 | Updated: November 16, 2019 | By Ashlee

It’s no secret I’ve moved a lot. 32 times actually… But my Husband? He grew up in the same house from birth to the time we got married. Of course SINCE we got married things have changed for him a lot. We’ve moved 10 1/2 times (I count the remodel as 1/2 because we basically moved everything out and back in again!). Anyway my husband grew up with a door that they measured their heights on. When my In law’s moved a few years ago they brought their door with them. With all the moving we’ve done I’ve never had anything to measure my kids with. So I finally decided to do something about it! I made my own Ruler Growth Chart!

We have tall genes, my family ranges from 6 feet to 6 feet 8 inches (yes I’m a shorty at 5′ 9″). My husbands family ranges from 6 feet to 6 feet 2 inches. SOOO I had to consider how TALL our kids might get when I started. Since the kids all START at 21 inches I knew we didn’t need the bottom foot. I decided to go from 1 foot to 7 feet. I went with a pine board 6 feet long and 1 foot wide and 3/4 inches thick.

I sanded down the board, the edges, corners, etc. I wanted it nice and smooth. I considered creating an angle at one edge, like a real ruler, but decided not to take the time. Then I sealed the wood with a polyurethane. I considered staining the wood too, but decided to go with the natural color.

I created vinyl with marks every inch, longer ones at the foot mark as well as medium ones at 3, 6 and 9 inches. I decided to have the numbers (using a font as close to the numbers on the ruler I was basing it all on) RIGHT across from the longer dash, but you could also have then next to the dash as well. Using a font as similar to a ruler as I could I also cut out our name with a “since 2000” (the year we got married of course) underneath. Then I sealed the whole thing a few more times over the vinyl.

I’m really happy with how it turned out. The funny thing is I finished this 6 months ago! Yup that long ago! BUT I just barely got around to hanging it. The part I hadn’t considered was how short our ceilings are in our basement! The spot I had PLANNED on putting it wasn’t 7 feet tall (imagine how my 6′ 2″ husband feels down here). So I had to rethink. PLUS I was worried that if it was left out in a common area Destruct-o Girl (still working on a nickname for the youngest now that she isn’t the Naked One 24/7 anymore) would draw on it if I left it out! I ended up putting it in a small space in my office.

Now onto marking it up! I have TERRIBLE handwriting. Really horrific. So now I don’t want to mark up my pretty growth chart with my nasty writing. So I decided to use my silhouette! I wanted the writing smallish and I wanted it to be permanent so I didn’t want to use the vinyl itself for the names, but I COULD use the vinyl for a stencil for permanent marker!

I first went with a font that was like handwriting, but it was too decorative and didn’t work. then I moved onto a simpler, plainer font. It worked GREAT! I cut the names and their ages and birthday’s this year. Then I cut the names into strips. I measured each child and stuck the vinyl onto the growth chart.

Then with a permanent marker I filled in the stencils!

Peel off the vinyl stencil and voila!!! Now I think I’ll go back in time using the measurements from their birthday Dr. appointments! Yup, I keep all those things so it won’t be a problem! What do you think? Or is that overboard?

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