DIY Wooden Growth Chart

Watching our babies grow up is an inevitable part of life.  It’s exciting, sad, happy, fun, terrifying, and occasionally heartbreaking. Basically, a bag of emotions that we sometimes have no words for.

Sometimes just a smile tells the whole story. Other times, laying it all out on the table to anyone who will listen is what really tells the whole story. Either way, watching our babies grow up is one of the most rewarding, gratifying and yes, difficult gifts we as parents are given.

Most parents I know like to keep baby books that track the first few years of their child’s life. These are fun to save and even more fun to go back and read. Once completed, however, most baby books end up on a shelf or in a closet never to be opened again. The same goes for memory boxes that are full of treasured items like the onesie your peanut wore in the hospital, the hospital’s signature beanie hat, a tiny newborn size diaper, baby shower greeting cards or, in my case, my son’s dried umbilical cord stump! My faux suitcase box, albeit cute, sits on a shelf and hasn’t been opened in nearly a year!

Looking for a way to proudly display instead of hiding my son’s journey through toddlerhood and into tweenhood, I decided to make a growth chart. This DIY Wooden Growth Chart is simple and inexpensive to make. It’s a creative way to involve your child in the growth process and you can hang it your house, admiring it for years to come.

What’s also great about making a chart instead of using a door or wall in your house is that you can transport this if you move. Feeling extra ambitious? Make this for a friend as a baby shower gift!

DIY Wooden Growth Chart Tools Needed:

• 6’ piece of wood (I bought mine from a reclaimed wood store in downtown Tampa)
• White acrylic paint (or color of choice)
• Paintbrushes
• Stencils
• Tape Measure
• Pencil
• Large flush-mount hangers (I used Hillman Brand from Lowes)

*You can also use a 6’ piece of fence wood from Lowes or Home Depot. That’s probably the cheapest option.

DIY Wooden Growth Chart Directions:

1. Decide how high off the ground you want your growth chart to hang. Have someone else hold it up while you use the tape measure to draw a horizontal pencil line at the 1’ mark. My line is 4.5” long.
2. Lay your piece of wood on a table or large workspace. Doing your best to replicate a “ruler”, use the tape measure to draw horizontal pencil lines at the 2’, 3’, 4’, and 5’ marks. My lines are 4.5” long.
3. Next, use the tape measure to draw horizontal pencil lines at the 1.5’, 2.5’, 3.5’, and 4.5’ marks. My lines are 3” long.
4. In between the foot marks, draw horizontal pencil lines at the inch marks. Remember there are 12” in a foot. My lines are each 1” long.
5. Along the right side of my DIY Wooden Growth Chart, I painted the numbers 1-5 to mark each foot.
6. At the top of my piece of my DIY Wooden Growth Chart, I hand wrote the word Love in cursive and used stencils for the words GROWS HERE. You might also like to add your child’s name and/or birthday if you have room. I recommend using a pencil first for all letters, numbers, and lines. You can easily erase if you make a mistake and then finish it off with paint. I used white acrylic paint for a natural look.

Finish off your DIY Wooden Growth Chart by adding the flush mount brackets.

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Find a spot in your home, maybe your child’s nursery, playroom, or your living room and proudly display your DIY Wooden Growth Chart. When they get older you can reminisce about the days when they were little and innocent.

Related: 3 Step DIY Distressed Picture Frame

How did your DIY Wooden Growth Chart turn out? I’d love to see pictures. Share in the comments below.

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Meagan

Hi! I’m Meagan and I’m a 41 year old mom of a high energy almost 9 year old, happily navigating my way through the little boy years. I’ve been married for 14 years. I met my husband over 20 years ago in high school; we got married 10 years later after graduating from the University of South Florida. I currently help run a family business with my parents while blogging about my life and love of DIY projects!

When I’m not at a kids sports game, I enjoy spending time with my family on a beach anywhere. I also love decorating and organizing, fun DIY projects, bargain shopping, and eating out or in! I also love Barbecue anything and a good show or movie on Netflix.