TUTORIAL: Handmade height chart

What do you do when you move from the house where your baby was born and started growing up?  You can't take that height chart (oh so lovely in Sharpie on the kitchen wall) with you, so you'll have to get creative.  This was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest, where it was done much better, but here is my take.

Here was our classy original version.  Even had we been staying at our house, something needed to change...

Here's how we improved upon it, and made it mobile.

SUPPLIES:
Safety pins
Long piece of fabric to hang on wall
Smaller contrasting piece of fabric to cut into rectangles
Marker to write ages

For the chart: I used a navy piece of cotton fabric from my fabric stash, cut to about 5 inches wide (I left room to hem the sides).

For the measurement markings: I used some cool burlap looking fabric that had been the lining of a tie I had taken apart to refashion into a bow tie for Gavin.

I used safety pins to attach the height markers to the chart.

I then cut the burlap-ish fabric into rectangles and added safety pins to each piece.

I taped the column of chart fabric to the wall, with the bottom just touching the floor, so I will know where to line it up and hang it when we move. 

Then I wrote the ages from the wall on to the measurement tags.

I then pinned the tags to the fabric chart at the corresponding height of the wall marking.

I found a somewhat cute bag from my gift wrapping stash (I repurpose everything) that I could use to store the extra measurement markers.  I later pinned the bag to the top of the chart (photo way down below) so I can easily add measurement pins in the future.

Here's how it looks behind Gavin's door.  Now we can take it with us, and it's not distracting to potential home buyers.

Here's where I pinned that bag of extra pins/markers so I can add more measurements without having search for the materials.  (Obviously I do need to iron and hem this!  Today was more about getting the kitchen wall painted - I will finish the height chart off later.)

Kitchen wall - ready for house showings!  No more classy Sharpie height chart.