Matt’s and my nephew population increased by two last year, bringing our total allotment to four. For each of our nephews, whether he counts his age in years or months, Christmas is a big deal. But there’s an extra specialness for nephew’s first Christmas, as you probably expect.

My sisters were very specific in their gifting instructions:

“Please remember he will only be about 9 months at Christmas and does not need tons of presents. His favourite toys are currently boxes, paper, strings on his Dad’s sweatshirts and his socks. As you can see, he has simple tastes and you do not need to spend a lot of money on him this year.”

The instructions didn’t really help. The little boys still got a lot of gifts.

The one who followed the directions best was probably my Dad. He gave each of the boys a stick.

Of course, he did hand turn the wood very carefully on his lathe and then sanded them smooth and varnished them. They were special sticks… and were winners with the boys.

Matt and I also made something for the boys, although they didn’t appreciate them as much as the sticks.

We made growth charts that look like big wooden rulers.

I thought these were pretty clever when I first saw them online. Plus, if my sisters ever move, they can take this with them much easier than a door frame or a piece of drywall.

I’m not going into a full tutorial on how we made our rulers, but don’t worry, I will give you my templates, some tips, and posts on two other blogs that will give you everything you need to make your own.

There are lots of examples of these types of growth charts online and lots of tutorials out there. Here are the two posts that were most helpful to me:

• Sketchy Style’s DIY Growth Chart – This one is more of a life chart than a growth chart–super inspiring and fun. Becky’s tutorial for transferring type onto wood was revolutionary for me. No stenciling! No painting! Wonderous. (The font I chose is Baskerville Old Face in case you’re interested).

• Decor and the Dog’s DIY Growth Chart – Michelle’s tutorial turned me on to paint pens. Transferring type to wood isn’t fool proof, and the paint pens helped me be super precise for the touch-ups. Plus, I was obviously inspired by Ike’s cute photos… although my model wasn’t quite as cooperative.

I made my growth charts out of half inch plywood, roughly 10 inches wide by 6 feet tall. I liked the layered edge that was visible from the plywood. Since they’re so thin, they’re pretty light weight, so a simple sawtooth picture hanger on the back was all I needed.

And here are my templates, just in case you want to make your own ruler. If you’re going to transfer the type directly from paper onto wood, you’ll need the reversed file.

Growth chart template – Free printable

Growth chart template (flipped) – Free printable

Tomorrow is my third nephew’s first birthday. He lives a bit far away, so I don’t get to see him as often as I’d like. I’m hoping my sister’s able to squeeze in time–and get my nephew to hold still long enough–to make the first mark on his chart. Happy birthday, Cole. It’s been very special to see you grow over the past year.