Homemade Wooden Growth Charts

When my brother Patrick and I were little, my parents would measure us and mark our heights on a wall. I remember always being so excited to see how much I had grown. But we ended up moving so much, and we lost those precious mementos of growing up. I'm sure my family will be moving too, so instead of marking heights on the wall, I wanted to do it on something transportable that the kids could keep and eventually show their own children. I looked online and found several growth charts that you can buy... but I thought it would be much more fun, meaningful, and less expensive to make our own. So, Alayna and I had a craft day and we had a great time making these wooden growth charts.



In case anyone is interested in making these, here's how we did it:

We took a trip to the hardware store and found some nice white MDF boards. They only came in lengths of 8 feet or longer. So I got one 8 footer and had them cut it in half to make two 4 feet pieces. 4 feet is a little long for a growth chart, but I figure that way both girls can have their own chart and it goes all the way from 2 feet to 6 feet tall!



I bought some little painted wooden cut-outs of flowers, butterflies, and animals from Walmart and Hobby Lobby, and grabbed some acryllic paint, glitter paint, and a black paint pen from one of my many boxes of craft supplies. These are some of the cut-outs:




Alayna helped me paint the background colors on the wooden boards, and I painted on some grass, stems, leaves, and embellishments. I placed a flower at every half foot and animals in between. The flowers on Alayna's chart were much smaller than the orange ones on Cecily's, so I painted around where I wanted each small flower cut-out to go in order to make them look bigger. Then, Alayna helped me glue the cut-outs on and we added glitter to give them a little sparkle. I used the paint pen to mark out the inches and feet, as well as write the girls' names on top. Here are some close-ups.





I had Mike measure it out and hang Alayna's on the wall. Here she is getting measured for the first time. She's 39 inches tall today!



The MDF boards are kinda thick and heavy so I might have gotten something lighter if I were to do it over again, but they were easy to paint and seem nice and sturdy. Overall I think the growth charts turned out great and it was a really fun project! Plus, I'd estimate that they cost less than $10 each to make.

And I just had to add these pics of Mike and Alayna heading out for a daddy-daughter movie date to give mommy a much-needed break today! Plus a few of me and my sweety Cecily. They're getting bigger every day - good thing we have our charts to keep track now!