Latest Project

This past week I started working on a project that I thought might help occupy my week while little one is napping. Well, I started the project on Monday and ended up finishing it on Tuesday....so not so much luck with it helping to occupy my time. I guess the dishes were calling my name anyway. 

This project I call 'Little M's Ruler' (real creative, I know). 

I've wanted a way to document her growth. You've got those roll up growth charts (I think they look particularly cheap) and then you have the old fasioned 'mark it on the door frame', but then when you move you're going to take the door frame with you...in my case, that answer would be no. So, I came across this project on a blog I found through Pinterest (I don't think I have mentioned my love for pinterest yet, but I will save that for another post). Found at: Dear Lillie 

I knew immediately when I came across it that this is what I was going to create.



 I had my husband go to Home Depot over the weekend to get me a piece of wood. All other materials we already had on hand. To help out a little though he went ahead and grabbed some cloths and a new paint brush.
Materials you may or may not need, but I used:
Piece of wood
Pre-Stain
Stain
Cloth
Paint Brush
Tape Measure
Ruler
Pencil
Black Sharpie
Computer with Word (to print numbers 1-6)

I started with a Pre-Stain by just following the directions on the container- I used a piece of cloth to rub it on with. Then, I stained the piece of wood using a paintbrush (just the side I wanted to be the front and all the sides- don't worry about the back). I used a stain we already had on hand. It turned out a little darker than I would have liked, but it still looks good. After the stain dried I used a tape measure and a pencil to make marks at every inch along the board. Then, a sharpie and ruler to create the lines at the inch marks I just created with my pencil. All quarter lines I made 2 inches long- all others 1 inch long. So basically a pattern- 2 short, 1 long, 2 short, 1 long, repeat all the way up the board. I then printed the numbers 1 through 6 in 200 point font- I used century bold font type. I then traced each number onto the board with a pen pressing down hard enough to leave an indention for me to trace and color in with my sharpie. Be carefully where you start your numbers- I started my board at 1/2 a foot because we are going to have it hanging 6 inches from the floor. So, my 1 foot mark on the board really looks only 6 inches- but will be accurate for measuring because of the distance it will be hanging from the floor.

We have not hung it yet and when we do I will post another picture of the final product. We will probably document her height in silver- we thought that might look neat. We'll see.
So, now we have a beautiful accent to the house that is also a height tracker for our little one.

I love multi-use items!