I will make a super long story short, and give short and simple directions so you can make your own.  
|  | 
| Story: Our sweet neighbor needed help rebuilding a small fence.  My sweet husband offered to help and well, since he has a truck, he kinda got stuck with all of the scrap wood and it was obvious that he would have to take it to the dump.  It was a gold mine for me!  I picked out the pieces that I wanted and off to the dump he went. Wait!!  before I let him go, I posted the free wood on craigslist.. most of it was gone within 2 days.  I posted all of the ideas that I had that people can do with it (make a bench, a star, a growth chart and so on) this may have helped get rid of it. The End! I was saving this piece for a bench, but decided to use it for my Growth Chart.
 | 
|  | 
| 
here are the simple steps. 
1.  Steal a ruler from your kids homschool room.  You will need a 1 foot ruler. 
2.  measure 1 foot and mark it with a sharpie.  Mark it lightly or it will bleed. 
3. Aftner I measured and marked all the feet, I measuredand markd all of  the 1/2's. 
4. Then I measured 2 inches and marked. 
5. I went back with my sharpie and measured from the edge of the board 3 inches to mae the line. 
6. the 1/2 foot mark was measured 2 inches,  
7 and the 2 inch marks were measured 1 inch. 
(These are the lines drawn across). 1 foot 3inches. 1/2 foot 2 inches and 2 inches 1 inch.) I hope this makes sense!! 
  
Then I painted with Eggshell white paint from Lowes.  I used a fine tip brush. 
After it dried, I stapled my stencils where I wanted them and painted my numbers. 
  | 
|  | 
| 
Now the hubby will be sealing this to prevent splintering.  This is a very old piece of wood and it will definitely splinter. 
 After it is sealed, I will use a sharpie on Thanksgiving day and on the left side I will mark the date, kids name and height. 
  
I will Keep this forever! 
What do you think?? | 
|  | 
| If you can't get an old piece of wook like I did, you can find a new piece of fence wood at Lowes or Home Depot.  They run between $2.00-$8.00.. Paint it, distress it and make it your very own for your unique family. 
 |