How to Make a Ruler Growth Chart

Hello, friends! Today I’m sharing how to make a ruler growth chart, so you can have a cute place to keep record of your kiddos’ height without having to mark-up any walls!

I’ve been meaning to make my son a growth chart this whole past year and finally got around to it. Oops! His 1st birthday is coming up in just a couple weeks, and I made it just in time for that 1 year old height record!

What can I say, I like to procrastinate.

This ruler growth chart is super easy to make, and you only need a few items as follows:

1. One 6ft tall 1×8 board
2. Wood stain – your choice of color (I used Minwax Dark Walnut)
3. Foam paint brush
4. Black Sharpie pen
5. Pencil and ruler
6. Printed numbers 1-6 (you can print them below!)

I stained my board with the dark walnut stain I chose. Since walnut is a dark color already, I wiped the stain off immediately after the whole board was covered. It was only on for a total of 2 minutes, but you can leave your stain on longer depending on the color you want to achieve. I let it dry overnight.

To make the growth chart look like a ruler, I used my pencil and a small ruler and measured one inch up from the bottom of the board and made a line one inch across (to represent the 1/8 inch mark on a ruler). I kept going up the board every inch, marking a line as I went. I made every third line to be two inches long to represent the 1/4 inch mark on a ruler.

I then went back over the penciled lines with my Sharpie and a ruler. I used the pencil to mark my lines first so I could erase if I made a mistake.

Next, I cut apart my numbers 1-6. I turned them over and used my pencil to rub or color over the number firmly, making sure that the whole number was covered.

(You can print out the numbers to make your own growth chart HERE!)

I put the number one 6 inches up from the bottom of the board, that way I could hang the growth chart 6 inches up from the ground and it would equal a foot. Using my pencil, I firmly pressed and traced the number.

I was left with a faint penciled number “1” that I could then easily fill in with my Sharpie.

I continued with the rest of the numbers, making sure I placed them exactly 12 inches apart before tracing (because knowing me, I’d count wrong and mess it up!).

I added a little sawtooth hanger on the back, and hung it up in my son’s room.

I can’t wait to measure him on his birthday and make that first little mark! I love seeing how much they grow each year.

Hope you have a great rest of the week!