DIY Growth Chart

Every nursery needs a growth chart to record the height of the child as he grows.  So, I knew I wanted to buy one or make my own in a teddy bear theme.  I looked around and didn't see one that really took my fancy, but I did find a DIY growth chart here that I knew I could adapt.  I liked the jute webbing she used, because it's very suited to the colors I'm using as well as looking masculine.  I couldn't find any locally though, so I had to order it from an Etsy seller.

My first step was to measure and cut it to the length I wanted.  Since 6 feet seems to be the standard, that's what I went with, but I left 6" off the bottom for clearance of a baseboard, etc.  Then I turned the top and bottom under and glued them, again using my favorite Aleene's Fabric Fusion.  I bought a curtain grommet and added it to the top for hanging the growth chart.  Once I had that done, I started marking feet and inches on the jute with a blue sharpie.

Instead of using stencils for the numbers as was done in the tutorial, I found some red felt numbers with adhesive backs.  These were so easy to attach.

Since I wanted to have a teddy bear chart, I was fortunate to find a roller at Hobby Lobby that has paw prints on it.  I knew I could use paint on the roller to add some bear tracks to the growth chart in between the numbers.

Adding the bear tracks was a little tricky.  I tried not to make more than four tracks each time, since that was how many paws were on the roller, but I did go over a little several times.  And sometimes I had to go over the paint again with my sponge brush to fill in gaps where the paint was thin.  Actually, it struck me while I was doing this that I could have used two different size of the round sponge brushes to make the paws instead of buying the roller, one for the foot and a smaller one for the toes.

When I finished the paws, I added some appliques.  There's a bear in a baseball cap at the top and a baseball at the bottom.  And although the baby can't be measured yet, I have some bear safety pins and key tags on which his height can be recorded whenever he gets to that point.