For some time now, I've been pinning and eyeing extra-large ruler projects like this. I love the simple wooden decor and the whimsical addition of a giant ruler to your house. But I didn't think it really made a lot of sense to put one of these in our home until David and I had a bambino who's growth we could measure along the way. 

And now that we do have a baby (almost) on board at the Ten June house? Oh yeah.

This project was really simple. I grabbed an old wooden board from our scrap wood pile in the basement. If you don't have any scrap wood available, you can pick up a board from your local hardware store. I grabbed a piece of wood that was completely beat up and had white paint all over it, just because I wanted to give this project a completely rustic effect.

I'm lucky in that my board was already stained, but you could stain or paint yours easily.

I measured the board and penciled off tick marks for every inch. I decided to start the board at one foot, so that I could eventually hang the piece on the wall, slightly off the ground. I'll just need to remember to always hang it so that the bottom is exactly one foot above the floor. Makes sense to me!

I was thrilled to be able to break out my non-toxic craft paint for this project (one of the biggest things I miss since I've become pregnant is painting!). As you can see, I almost haphazardly painted ivory lines over each of the tick marks. I wanted this project to be fun and rustic, not too formal.

My initial thought was to create my own stencils to paint the numbers on the growth chart (just because I freehanded the tick marks doesn't mean I could freehand the numbers and have them actually resemble numbers, ha!), just like I did with my DIY rustic wooden board sign. But then I got lazy realized I had some old chipboard stickers I could use and they'd be a heck of a lot easier cuter than any stencil I made. So a coat of ivory craft paint went over the chipboard stickers and… voila! Automatic ruler numbers.

And that's all she wrote, folks. Easy peasy project, right?

Right now, our new growth chart ruler is leaning against the wall in our office (and clearly it was hanging out in the breakfast room for awhile, too). Once we find a final location for it (the nursery?), I'll screw in a bracket to the back so we can basically hang it like a heavy picture frame. 

I just love the big ol' ruler's rustic look. I can picture all of us crowded around it one day, measuring our growing little man and his siblings. Functional + sentimental art… I love it!

PS. Since I've been hanging on for dear life to Picnik, this was my first post that I edited photos via PicMonkey… not too shabby!

Post by Michelle : Ten June