Pin It - Did It!

If you're an avid blog reader like I am, then you're probably pretty into Pinterest too.  They kind of go hand in hand.  I love it, but my Boards got crazy out of control really fast, so eventually I just started "liking" everything instead of pinning them to individual boards.  I currently have 1,340 "Likes".  One of the things on my never-ending To-Do List is to organize my account better, but I also want to start doing some of the things I've pinned.  That's kind of the point, right?

So, I decided to pick something and do it.  I picked this...

It's a growth chart ruler.  I know we're not going to stay in our current house, so I thought this would be a fun way to start tracking Madeleine's height that we could also take with us whenever we decide to move. 

We used a combination of the tutorials here and here to make it. 

Here's what you'll need:
- 6 foot tall piece of your favorite wood.  We used Pine because its cheap.  Also, our board was 9" wide because I thought 6" seemed to thin.
- Your favorite stain
- Pencil
- Sharpie markers (preferably brand new with a good tip)
- Framing Square

Bill took care of prepping the board.  He got it cut to size, roughed it up, and stained it.  Since I'm preganant I didn't want to be around the fumes.

When it was fully cured and didn't smell anymore, I got to work on the details.  Using a square and pencil I marked the board at every inch.  Then, I went back with my pencil and made the lines.  The small lines are 1½" and the long lines are 3".  Then, I went over my pencil lines with a Sharpie marker.  I was doubtful that a Sharpie marker would look as good as paint, but it looks awesome and is much easier to work with.

Next, I made my own stencils for the numbers.  The tutorials offer a few other methods for the numbers, but I was doubtful I had the necessary skills to make it look crisp and clean using their methods.  I printed off numbers 1-6 in Times New Roman font sized to 250 on card stock.  Using scissors I carefully cut each number out.  I made sure to cut the number out in one continuous cutting motion, so there was only one entry point on the card stock.  Then, I taped that off to make my stencil.

Lining it all up was a little difficult, as my stencils were not see-through.  However, using the square, a few fixed points, and my eye I was able to line it all up pretty good.  The bottom of each number is 5" away from the left of the board.

Once I had each stencil in place, I traced and filled it in with the Sharpie.  I put two layers of Sharpie on each one, and ended up with a nice crisp, dark number.

Oh, and watch out on the 4 and 6.  It was impossible to make a stencil that took into account the dead space in the middle of the 4 and 6.  After I cut out each of those numbers, I saved the cut-out.  Then, I cut the dead space out of each of those and taped the scissor entry point again.  When I had my main stencil in place for these numbers, I fit the cut-out back in the original space and using a fine point Sharpie traced around the dead space.  When I removed it I could tell where it was safe to color in with the thick Sharpie.

So, that's how we did it...and here's the finished product!!

And yes, ours does not line up 6" off the floor the way it is supposed to.  We have 6" baseboards, so it didn't work out.  However, I really liked the symmetrical look of starting the ruler at 6" and ending it at 6'6".  It's mostly just functioning as just art right now.  Most likely our next house will have standard 4" baseboards, and if it doesn't I'll figure out some way to hang it so the measurements will be accurate.

I'm thinking I should probably seal it with something, but don't know with what yet. 

Oh, and we tried to measure Madeleine, but she really did not want to stand up against it for some reason.  We just had her 2 year old wellness visit and she was 33¼" tall.  She's rocking the 25th percentile!!