Willardson Supply Co. Est. 2001

Yesterday, I finished up another little crafty project that has been sitting half-done in my garage since October. 

Excuse my inept photography. Good cameras really can only do so much to make bad photos look better. 

Anyway, I finally put the measurement tick marks and the numbers on a giant ruler growth chart. 

When we sold our home, I was do sad to leave behind the door trim in Corbin's closet where I's marked the children's heights,beginning around the time Quincy was a tot until about a year ago when I painted it white to make the house more sellable. Why didn't I rip out the trim and keep it? I think that after priming and painting and installing doors for months I was just too mentally exhausted to even consider replacing another piece of trim. 

I've wanted to make one of these for a few years and finally got around to it. I need to decide where to hang it. The children already love checking how tall they are and I can't wait to mark it up and pencil in all their heights as they grow. 

For this cheap and easy project, I used a 1x6 piece of pine ($5), leftover stain (compliments of Laura the Great, who made one too), a ruler, and a black sharpie pen.

To get the numeral to look like the ones on an old school wooden ruler, I printed off 1-6 in like a 250 font size, placed the paper with the printed number right where I wanted it, then traced over the outline of the number with a pencil, taking care to press down really hard. 

Pine is a very soft wood and my pencil tracing etched a faint outline on the wood below. All I had to do was fill in with a black sharpie. This trick would also work on painted wood with any color sharpie or a paint pen. Forget toll painting and stencils, ladies. Ain't nobody got time for that. 

This reminds me of a time when we were at the Eggars' house when I was probably in 4th or 5th grade for a fireside or multi family gathering of some kind. My mom had given me a pen and paper from her purse to keep me quiet during the meeting and I entertained myself by sitting on the floor at the coffee table doodling my name all over the paper. 

Hours after we'd left, RuthAnn called my mom and told her she'd discovered my name etched all over the top of the coffee table in my handwriting. Ruth Ann only laughed, and likely said, "bless your heart!" as she is the most forgiving and cheerful person I've ever known. Anyway, looks like the etching through paper trick works on oak coffee tables, too, in case you're wondering.