Ruler Measuring Board

Thank you Pinterest for another great idea!  I'm sure many of you have seen it as well and I thought it was such a cute idea.  

The original post I saw for this measuring board didn't give specifics about what size wood to by or any of the other supplies I'd need so I just winged it.  I made a couple of mistakes and I'll show you those too.  I'm honest like that. 

I had the project completed in less than a full day and only two trips to the hobby store.  I hope to save you some time by giving you the nitty gritty right away. 

The wood we chose to use was 3/4 inch thick, 6 feet long and about 7 1/3 inch wide.  I think you can choose any wood you like.  This piece is oak and didn't need to be stained because we didn't want that funky smell in the house and because I'm to impatient to wait for stain to dry.

We have molding on the bottom of the wall we wanted to hang this measuring board on so we measured up above the molding and started our "ruler" 9 inches off the ground.  So the bottom of the board is the 9" mark.  Does that make sense?

I used a pencil to mark the inch marks all the way to the top of the board.  I then used my husbands right angle tool and a sharpie marker (just a regular permanent marker) to draw 2 - short 1" wide marks and then a 2" wide mark.  So it would go in a pattern like this.

_____ (1 inch)

_____ (1 inch)

__________ (2 inches)

_____ (1 inch)

_____ (1 inch)

__________ (2 inches)

Get it?

These are the finished marks.

At first I used a black sharpie marker to do the 1.  But the black ink sort of bled and I didn't like that.

Then I used a black acrylic paint to do the number 2 and it was awful.  The paint sort of bled under the stencil and it looked awful.  We quickly wiped off as much of the paint as we could using some paint thinner to help get it off.  Most of it did come off but there was a slight discoloration where the number was.

Next I used a pencil to draw the rest of the stenciled numbers.

Then I ran to the hobby store again and bought this Sharpie Paint pen.  Best invention ever!  It was easy to do the remaining numbers with this thing.

My daughter took this picture of me painting on the rest of the numbers.  Pretty good picture for a 4 year old if I do say so myself.

This is the finished project.  Looks just like a ruler!  You can hardly tell where I messed up on the number 2!

This picture shows the molding we have on the bottom of the wall we wanted to hang this on, we measured up from the floor 1 foot and marked it on the wall, then matched up that indicator with the 1' mark on the ruler.

To hang it, my husband drilled a couple of holes under the 6 and a couple more near the 1 and just drilled it into the wall. Easy.  I'm sure there are ways to do it that won't leave marks on the front side but honestly you can barely even see them. So we didn't care.

Here is what you'll need:

• 6 foot long piece of wood.  You might need to stain it to match your decor. 
• Package of 2" stencils, you'll find the numbers with the alphabet stencils (all in the same package) but check the back of the package to make sure there are numbers in there. If you buy a piece of wood that is wider then the one I used you might want to get 3" stencils. 
• 1 black Sharpie Paint pen. 
• Ruler or yard stick
• Right angle tool (square) like I showed above

Total cost: $33.00  (25.00-Oak Board, 6.00 Stencils, 2.00 Sharpie Paint Pen)