Growth Chart Ruler

Everyone and their dog on pinterest has been making a DIY ruler growth cart. With my little one on the way I decided to jump on the bandwagon too! I think the look is such a fun, oversized, comic take on a traditional school supply. While ours didn't turn out quite as authentic looking as we planned, we love how it looks in our little guys space! Here's the play by play!

We purchased a 6ftx6inx1in. piece of oak. It was presanded, but Mr. Mayhem went over it with fine grit sandpaper just to be sure.

After a good wipe down, we stained it with Minwax in Puritan Pine.

 Mr. Mayhem stained it (wearing my dishwashing gloves) while I ran for the hills to avoid any fumes that would cause the baby to come out with a third arm or something.

See how pretty the color is!?

We then drilled two holes. One at the top and one at the bottom. We wanted to be able to attach it to the wall very securely. It will be close to the ground (1 foot up), so we didn't want the baby to pull it down once he starts wiggling around.

We then carefully measured the hash marks and taped them off to paint them. We did three different lenghts. 3 inches long each foot, 2 inches long every 3 inches, and all the rest were 1 inch long.

See what I mean in this picture. Little, medium, and long lines.

Then I hid out somewhere and probably ate some chocolate while the white spray paint went on. We had originally planned to use black, but decided with the white trim and furniture in the room, white would be a clean, contemporary look.

We (Mr. Mayhem) did 2 coats then we carefully pulled the tape off while it was still wet. I think this was my favorite part of the project.

Here it is with all its cute little lines. 

To add the numbers we used some 2 inch stencils I got at Hobby Lobby.

Measured carefully. 

Then taped them down and covered everything securely with newspaper. (Proof that I did help with this project...just not the stinky paint parts :-) )

Another round of paint.

It is starting to look like a ruler.

The numbers were a little bit uncrisp for my liking. I think if I changed one thing about how I did this project it would be to buy some stencil adhesive and actually stick the stencils down to the wood to prevent the over spray. Or paint the numbers by hand. Using one of those vinyl cutting systems with adhesive vinyl would work too, I just don't have one. 

To finish everything and make it super durable, Mr. Mayhem did three coats of Varathane Matte water based polyurethane.

We started the ruler at 1ft and then were careful to measure and hang it 1 ft off the floor so it will be an accurate measure of height.  I think it will be so fun to mark my little man's growth through the years. I love that we can take it down if we ever move. We are also planning to document any future children on this ruler as well. The ruler

Minion Nursery Update

Mr. Mayhem and I have been busy this past month getting things going in the nursery. We still have plenty of time before the bambino makes his appearance in November, but Mr. Mayhem's sister was coming for a visit at the end of July and we wanted her help painting the minion murals. So we had to get the office furniture out and the wall painted before her arrival. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the before with furniture, but here is the room pre-paint.

 As you can see the room was not horrible, but the colors were needing some updating and they definitely did not go with the minion theme.

Painting day was actually wonderful for me. My parents were in town. My mom took me maternity clothes shopping while my dad and Mr. Mayhem painted the whole room!

The color we chose was called Cloudy Day by color place. That's right...Wal-Mart paint. It works and it is cheap! We painted the trim with Dutch Boy Ultra White platinum in semi gloss. There is a definite difference between the quality of the two paints, and we felt it was worth the splurge for the trim, but the Wal-Mart paint worked just fine for the walls. One advantage to the Dutch Boy Paltinum paint is that it is low odor and no VOC. So even this preggo woman could get in on the fun. My job was painting the doors, outside in the well ventilated garage.

I neglected to take pictures between the wall/trim painting and the minion painting. This is the only shot of the walls without a minion...We toyed with the idea of not painting the trim (it is time consuming, annoying, we're lazy), but we are sooooo glad we did. It really adds a lot to the room. 

Without further ado the awesome murals painted by my sister-in-law with the help of my husband.
Let me remind you that these are not decals. They are hand painted! 

Minion Mural

I will admit I was a little worried how they would turn out. I think it was because I was picturing how it would look if I tried to paint them....Luckily SIL is a MUCH better painter than I am. They used color place wall paint and artist brushes to complete the murals.

Here are some in progress pictures of the minions. They started by using a projector to project the image on the wall and traced around it. Then they turned off the projector and started filling in the solid colors. The last and most technical part was SIL shading and blending to make them images 3D.

Mr. Mayhem painted so much he hurt his wrist! You can see the ace bandage in the pictures. Luckily he is recovering and even started a new painting project over the weekend. I'll have updates when it's finished.

The other fun update that we added to the nursery is the crib. Last Saturday some good friends of ours stopped over to drop it off. We were so surprised and grateful for their generosity! Here's Mr. Mayhem putting it together.

Our Cat, General Tso, likes to be a part of everything we are doing. Mr. Mayhem assembled the crib while I read the directions and stopped the cat from eating the Styrofoam packaging!

Can you spot the kitty?

 It is really starting to look like a nursery! I can't wait for the little guy to get here so he can enjoy the space.  Obviously we need to do a bit more before his arrival. Like buy a crib mattress...

When we first started on the nursery, my thought was, "that rug is going to have to go," but now I kind of like it. It works well with the yellow, blue, and grey. It is still there on a trial period. I might swap it out...What do you think? Keep it or keep looking?