Tips for Creating a Growth Ruler

I have been wanting to create a new growth ruler ever since we moved into this house. Our old growth ruler was on the back of the boys’ bedroom door at our old house. It was hard to leave that door. I contemplated in my mind switching it out and bringing it, but I decided that would be too much work. Before we moved, we took our last measurements, lot of pictures, and wrote down the measurements to transfer to a new growth ruler.

I finally set out to do this project, and of course I thought I could just figure it out. I looked at some pictures of other growth rulers out there. There are so many beautiful ones. They are all over Pinterest, and I should have clicked on at least one of them for the tutorial. Instead, I decided I would just try to figure it out. I did, but it was hard, and I could have saved some serious time and brain cramps. So, I encourage you to read a tutorial! I learned some things the hard way on this project, and I will share them with you. Hopefully, your growth ruler will be easier to create.

I’m not good at math. At one point I had I four different measuring tools in front of me (ruler, yard stick, tape measure, and a Speed Square), and I was trying to decide which one was best and how to do it.

1. The Speed Square was perfect. It has a little ridge that caught on the edge of my board, so I could make straight and accurate lines.

2. Sharpie is ok to use and stain over it. I was afraid to use a sharpie for fear my stain would smear it, but it worked great and was much easier than trying to paint all those straight lines. All my measurement lines were done in sharpie.

3. I started my ruler at 6″ inches. This meant that when we hung the ruler up on the wall, we needed to make sure it was hanging 6″ off the ground. You could apply the same principle and start your ruler at any height you want.

4. I first did all my markings, and I went back and added my big stenciled numbers.

5. I used a wider board than most. My board is actually 10″ wide. I liked the wider board to allow for bigger numbers and have plenty of room for names and dates.

6. The length of my measurement lines across are 4″ inches, 3″ inches, and 2.5″ inches long. The 4 inch line is for the foot measurement, 3 inch line for the half-foot measurement, and the 2.5 inch line marks all of the other inches.  My foot and half-foot measurements are the width of two sharpie lines.

7. I should have used a pencil to stencil on my numbers. I used a sharpie, and I had to sand my board several times to cover up the poor placement of my number four.

The measuring was the hardest part for me. Once I had my numbers in place, I dabbed painted them in to create a more rustic look, after I liked their placement, just like I did on my inspirational pillow. I then stained my whole piece. I think if I had read a tutorial, I wouldn’t have been as stressed trying to figure it out. Lesson learned.

Now that it is done, we are excited to hang it up!

I hope this post can save you a little stress! If you find a tutorial you think is perfect-let me know! I’ll add it to this post for reference!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Just a reminder my Wake Up & Do Good sign is still available. I am also having an instagram sale tonight at 5:00pm EST, if you are interested in any of my embroidered hoops!