Growth Ruler/Craft Room Decor DIY

CraftiMom here! Today I am showing you one my of my favorite crafts I have created to date. It’s so simple, but I love it. One thing I love about this craft is that you really don’t NEED any special tools.

I use basic pine boards for most of my crafting because they are cheap and easy to find. I used a 6′ board, which will give you a max height of 6’6″. I bought a 1×8, but if you prefer, you can certainly go with a wider board. A wider board would be great if you wanted to personalize the board with a child’s name or your last name.

Notice the actual measurements are .75″x7.25″, but I promise, this is a 1×8!

My greatest new discovery is water based stain! I don’t know how I didn’t know about this. I love stained wood projects, but oil based stains can be tricky to work with due to their oily nature. Basically, I’m impatient. I don’t want to wait after staining for the oiliness to go away or to poly it to give a better surface for the tape to adhere to. Ha!

to bive

I used Minwax color ‘Chocolate’ watered down to give me a lighter stain coverage.

Start by staining your board front,top,bottom, and sides. I like to leave the back unstained to prevent staining the wall. Make sure to get into the texture of the wood and coat it well.

Since I used water based stain, I was able to move right onto the next step. I used a yard stick and marked off every inch on one side of my board.

I wanted to give the look of a ruler and the varying marks for each measurement, so I came up with this pattern, 1″ 1.5″ 2″ 1.5″ 1″ 3″ 1″ 1.5″ 2″ 1.5″ 1″ 2.5″. I start my ruler at the 6″ mark and hang it 6″ off of the ground. I like the symmetry it gives to the finished ruler, but if you prefer a technical replica, you could certainly start at 0 and finish the board at 6′ instead of the 6’6″ mine ends at. If you decide to do this, switch the 3″ and the 2.5″ marks in the pattern above.

I swear I took a picture of the squaring tool I used, but I guess I didn’t! Turns out it’s called a rafter square. I used it to mark the varying lengths. I found it helpful to mark the order on my work surface and then move my board over to repeat the pattern.

Once I had the entire length of the board marked, I took my painters tape and taped along each side of the lines previously drawn. Make sure to extend the tape slightly beyond the height of your mark. I ended up having to overlap 2 pieces between each mark to give my the width of line I wanted.

I then went back with short pieces and taped off the tops of the lines.

Finally I taped the side of my board so that I would only be painting the top side. I then went over all of it and pressed down, making sure to create a seal around the edges.

For this project I used a basic acrylic paint in black and a disposable sponge brush. Apply a thin coat of paint.

Once everything is covered, pull off your tape while the paint is still wet.

I did cheat here and used my silhouette cameo to cut stencils for my numbers, but you don’t need to own one to make this project. You can use store bought stencils, print the numbers and trace them on and hand paint, or buy mailbox numbers and nail them on! I happen to have a cameo, so I used it. I made my numbers 4 inches tall.

I used oramask 811 and Lavanderia font. I slightly modified the width to my liking.

I cut my numbers on a stencil material, removed the centers, then used transfer paper and applied each number beside the 3″ marks.

Rub them on good and remove the transfer paper.

Then fill in with a thin coat of paint.

Once everything is painted, peel up the stencil. Make sure to go back and pull up the center on the 6 and any other pieces that may have been left.

You can seal the board with your favorite method. You can polyurethane(brush on or spray), wax, or leave plain if it’s going to be indoors. Add your preferred hanging hardware on the back and hang 6″ off the ground!

My craft room isn’t ready yet to hang this up, so here is my original board hung in my oldest’s room. I used a wider board and 4″ mailbox numbers for this one. I hung with simple sawtooth hangers on the top and bottom.