My parents recently sold and moved out of the house I grew up in. As I was visiting the home for the last time this past spring, I noticed pencil marks on the closet wall in the room my younger brothers grew up in.
The marks recorded their various heights over the years, as they grew from preschoolers to elementary school graduates. Unfortunately, however, there was no way to bring those marks with us when we moved (apart from taking a picture of them), and they’re likely painted over already.
So to avoid creating marks that have the same fate, I plan on buying a growth chart wall hanging for my daughter and her future brother. In fact, I hope to make the purchase sooner rather than later, considering the strategies I’ve come across lately for making the charts even more worth the money. Three such tactics make up today’s hint.
1. Go for a chart that works as affordable wall art. Many of the growth charts on the market today can serve as much more than just big rulers. Petite Lemon, for example, offers charts featuring educational images ranging from the alphabet, numbers or animals to your child’s name or cityscape hide-n-seek games. In other words, a growth chart can serve as that perfect ABC poster you’re searching for or can double as the nursery wall letters spelling your child’s name, saving you from having to buy separate posters and wooden letters (I wish I had thought of this when I was decorating my daughter’s nursery). Petite Lemon, a boutique offering personalized baby and kid items ranging from sibling t-shirts and birthday onesies to growth charts and posters, is giving away a $75 gift card to one lucky Hint Mama reader – details below.
2. Use one chart for multiple kids. Just because you have two or more kids, you don’t necessarily need more than one growth chart, even if you’re in the market for a personalized chart. You can always put two names or your last name on the same chart, or opt for a chart without any names at all. I’m thinking of getting a chart once my second arrives that says something like “The Schultz Kids.”
3. Think of the chart as a “baby book” of sorts. Finally, instead of just recording how tall your little ones are every year or so, you can also measure kids at big milestones, recording the date of the milestone and their height at the time, as Petite Lemon suggests over on its blog (and both pens and stickers can work great for recording). Example milestones: the first birthday party and the first day of preschool, for instance, and you could even take a picture of your child at the chart as you record that milestone. This way you’ll have a log of when important milestones occurred, as well as pictures ready for a baby book or important memory album.
Of course, perhaps the biggest benefit of a growth chart, as I allude to above, is that unlike traditional marks on wall, you can take it with you wherever you go, and you can give the charts to your children when they’re older as a memory of their childhood. And framed, a finished growth chart would make a nice wall hanging for a teenager’s room, assuming your teen would want it on display.
What are your tips for tracking your little one’s growth and for growth charts in general? What are your affordable wall art tips? Share them, and enter to win a $75 Petite Lemon gift card, below.
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For other families that have a their growth marked on the wall, you could cut the drywall to take it with you and frame it to save it. I also wonder if you couldn’t take a high-res picture and print it out at actual size.
Using one chart for multiple kids is brilliant!
I have a cute growth chart with stickers to mark height and milestones that makes a nice decorative piece as well as the growth chart function.
At an event here in portland called Crafty Wonderland there is a vendor with beautiful wood growth charts shaped like an oversized ruler I’ve found so appealing. Maybe for a teacher?
I have a lot of nieces (5) that are hitting their ‘tweens and are updating their bedrooms to fit into their new age group. Hand-me-down wall art is usually in great condition! We’ve painted a few frames to match and straight up on the wall.
A neighbor of mine did a growth chart on a fence board painted white. Not only did they have the height on the board, but they did a handprint in a different color every year. It was sooo cute!
For wall art, take your children’s art work and frame it. THe frame makes it look even nicer and it is a bit of them decorating your space.
I have not really tracked my kids’ growth. Sad but true- it was just one of those things I had to let go!! But at one point when I decided I wanted to get a growth chart and make it look like I DID keep up I asked the doctor’s office to give me a print out of the kids’ measurements at their checkups. Worked well!
So cute and much nicer than marking the walls 🙂 Thanks for the giveaway.
We have a gigantic garage sale in our neighborhood to support pediatric brain cancer research. I’ve found lots of things from older girls to outfit my daughter’s room.
I have a couple of hints. First, I like to use small and inexpensive wall decals for a big impact. Things like dots, stripes, triangles or even shapes of things like rockets, dogs or stars can be cheap when you buy them small. If you use many in a grouping, though, the impact can be huge!
Also, think about everything as art – and frame it! Calendar pages, cartoon clips, wrapping paper, leaves or dried flowers, and pages in books can all be art!
Using one chart for several children.