Three DIY Growth Charts

For over 20 years we have been keeping track of our Children’s growth with a wooden growth stick.  It has been  a fun yearly  tradition to measure each child and mark our growing stick/chart with their annual height growth and then to compare from year to year.

Do you record your children’s annual growth?

Here are THREE  ideas to create your own Growth stick/charts:

Idea #1 Hand Print Wall Chart

Over at  A Perfect Gray she shared a picture of the growth chart in her home that each year they traced their child’s hand print on the wall next to that years measurement of each child until they are 18 years old.

Click here to go to A Perfect Gray

Idea #3 DIY Rustic Growth Chart

Create a rustic looking growth chart to hang in your home with this how to tutorial from Silhouette America.

Click here for step by step how to instructions.

Idea #2 How To Make Your Own Hand Painted Growth Chart

Sure,you can just buy a growth chart. They sell them everywhere. My problem with the ones that I see in stores are that they are either too short, too flimsy,or just plain ugly! In addition, it’s nice to have them personalized with the child’s name. Plus I prefer homemade over store-bought crafts almost all of the time, so I just had to make this for that sweet little girl.
I started with a trip to the local home improvement store where I picked up a simple piece of wood that was 6 feet long, 6inches wide, and 1 inch thick. Look in the “nice” wood section (not the construction lumber) and you can easily find a nice piece of pine for just a few dollars.

I took the wood home and decided how I would mark it. I knew I didn’t want my friend to have to put the board all the way on the floor because the baseboard would make that hard to do.I decided the board should be mounted one foot above the floor. That means that my first mark at the bottom of the board would be at 1 foot,and I had enough room to take it all the way to a 6 foot mark at the top. I decided I wanted an inch or two of blank space above the 6 and below the 1, so that means my entire board needed to be 5 feet, 4inches long. I took it to the garage and made a quick cut and I was all set. (I certainly could have kept the entire 6 feet of length, but I decided to trim it a bit.)

After a quick light sanding, I painted the entire board white on both sides,using some leftover trim paint I had. I then marked all my measurements with a ruler and a pencil. I put the “1″ mark 2 inches from the bottom and marked every inch and foot from there on up to the top, where I finished with the “6″. I then painted over the pencil lines with acrylic paint.
Next was the fun part — painting the design! I started with large block letters that spelled out Emily’s name which I outlined in blue and then filled in with pink. I then decorated the top and bottom with lots of tiny flowers and leaves. For simple flowers, just make 5 round petals and put a dot in the middle. For the leaves, just a quick swish with a paint brush will do it.

The finished growth chart now hangs in Emily’s room and has lots of markings on it, measuring what a big girl she’s turning out to be… she’s up to 38 inches so far!