I have a crafty update that I am super thrilled with. I have been working on this project for almost two years. Well, more like I started this project two years ago and then didn’t work on it which is why I just finally finished it this week.

I have wanted to make a growth chart since before Calvin was born. But I knew I wanted to incorporate a picture of each kid so I at least needed to wait for him to arrive. So why did it still take me 18 months after that to get it done? I got totally bogged down in the execution of this one. I had a really grand vision and I was having a really hard time translating it.

When I was a kid I loved this long jump at the Denver zoo that would tell you what animal you could jump like.

I wanted a height chart that was the same idea. My online shopping search turned up nothing for purchase. I thought I could make one, but my artistic abilities aren’t really there.

I found a goldmine in this book of copywrite free illustrations of animals. I snatched it up and began the laborious job of cutting out the images with an exacto knife. It took a while, but I actually don’t mind mindless work like that.

The real hold up came in the research end of this project. I wanted to find out how tall each animal was on average so I could put them into the height chart in the correct spot. It took forever to look up each animal and then I was having a hard time getting them all in order, so I just gave up for a while.

But my kids aren’t getting any shorter…

So Monday was an icy inside day and I decided to pull out the animals and enlist the boys to just start helping me put them up. Ellis is in a serious animal phase at the moment, which makes him a very knowledgeable and opinionated helper. I let go of the idea that each animal needed to be in its correct spot, and freed from that constraint it was actually a quick and easy project.

I put a strip of double stick tape on the wall. I spread out all the animals and let the boys choose the ones they wanted for their chart. I guided them to put the big creatures up top and the small ones at the bottom and that seemed to work. Each of their pictures were put on their birth heights.

Once all the animals were up we put some washi tape down the middle. I added some simple numbered labels for the feet (and just dots for the inches).

Then we mod-podged everything to the wall.

The boys new favorite game is being measured. And I am just happy that after two years we can finally measure them whenever we want. No more lost inches at the Good house.