Summer Projects: Growth Charts

For awhile now, I've seen tutorials on making growth charts all over the blogs I read. With my leftover scraps of lumber from the construction site, I decided it was time I try to make one (or two). I was very pleased with how they both turned out! 

This first one is going to be for Eli's room. First, I sanded the piece of wood. I wanted to make sure there weren't any rough places where someone could possibly get a splinter. Then I spray painted it a nice chocolate brown color. Eli's room is going to be a soft blue color eventually, so I wanted to make the growth chart a contrasting color that would stand out on the wall. 

I used my ruler and marked off the inches all the way to 6 feet 2 inches. I really don't think Eli will get that tall, but you never know. The only downside to painting the growth chart brown is that I will have to make any marks on it in white. Being the crafty sort of girl that I am though, I always have white paint markers on me, so that shouldn't be a problem.

The second one I made was for my classroom at school. My room is decorated in bright colors (kind of like a rainbow exploded in there) so I wanted this growth chart to be bright and colorful as well. After sanding, I measured 12 inches at a time and painted the sections different colors.

Then I measured all the way to 6 feet (no need to go further because I've never had a 1st grader grow quite that much). The numbers I used came from Wal-Mart. They have adhesive on the back and all you have to do is peel and press them wherever you want. I would have used vinyl, but my Cricut is on the fritz and it's also locked away in storage.

To make it cutesy, I added polka dots using puff paint and added the "Watch Us Grow" at the top. My plan is to measure all my first grade kiddos at the beginning of the year and use post-it notes shaped like arrows to mark how tall they are. At the end of the year, I plan to measure them again to see how much they grew during their year in first grade. I can't to see how much they grow this year :)