Showing posts with label Paint Staining. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paint Staining. Show all posts

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Giant Ruler Growth Chart Tutorial

Lately Norah has been growing like a weed but I didn't realize it until my daycare lady mentioned she had grown about 5cm in 4 months!!! Then I realized I didn't have a growth chart set up for her...  We have 2 growth charts but one has velcro pieces which Norah loves to pull off and the other is too pretty to mark up with pen.  SO off to Pinterest I went to find something easy to make and found this pin. Which took me to Dear Lillies website where you can buy this for $49.99.



I LOVE the look of it!!!  And it would be SUPER easy to make! SO I had Ryan run to Home Depot and get me two (I planned to make 2 of these) 1 by 6's.  Then they sat in my hallway for a month.  I had planned on staining the wood with some leftover stain I had from back when I helped a friend stain her bed. (see here) However its now super cold outside and staining outside is not an option. I could stain it in the basement but then the house stinks and its not properly ventilated... so that was going to happen.  I had also planned on bringing the wood to my parents house and staining it in their garage because they have a heater in there. But I forgot the wood when we went to visit. Thats why the wood sat there for a month!!  Then last Friday I took the day off work and decided it was time to deal with it!! I sat back and brainstormed what I could do without using stain!  Then I thought meh lets try something new. So I pulled out some brown and silver paint and mixed them one a plate.


Then using a rag I wiped the paint onto the wood letting it truly soak into the wood. I tried using a paint brush but it looked bad. The rag was the way to go! It made the paint smooth and even and I only had to do one coat!!!

I honestly wasn't sure how this would end up turning out but I figured it couldn't look that bad!!! And I was right.. I LOVE how it turned out and I'm so glad I used the silver because it gave it an awesome yet subtle shine!


Then using a measuring tape, a ruler and a marker I marked the lines onto the wood.  I made the foot markings 2 inches in length and the inch markings 1 inch in length.  This took about 5 minutes to do.  Then I freehanded the numbers.  I had wanted to use a stencil for them but couldn't for the life of me find my numbers stencil... so I freehanded it!!

 And there you have it, Norahs growth chart!!  Now we just need to hang it!! I made it so it starts at 6 inches, which means we need to hang it 6 inches from the floor.