The Painting DIY That Turns A Sentimental Height Chart Into A Stylish Piece Of Art

Many parents or grandparents have a cherished but not-so-elegant height chart somewhere in their home. Whether it's on a wall or a door frame, it's a memory of family growth, passing time, and all of the years cherished together. It's a timeline of your kid's entire childhood, crammed onto a strip of wall. Yet, in reality, it can often just look like a bunch of wobbly pencil marks. They are precious, sure, but not exactly pretty to look at. Luckily, you don't have to choose between keeping the memories intact and having an aesthetically pleasing home. With a little paint and a few hours, you can turn cherished memories into beautiful personal decor.

The idea, which comes from Instagram creator @pdxdinorama, is to use thin paintbrushes to paint a vine over the height chart. Because vines are organic, they don't follow exact geometric patterns. This allows you to adapt the painting so that it perfectly fits on top of the height chart, no matter how messy or busy it is. By drawing small leaves and offshoots from the vine, you can cover the inscriptions so that they're still visible up close, but concealed from afar.

This works particularly well on a wall, but it can also be done on door frames. If that's where your height chart is, you can draw and paint the vines on the door frame and overflow them onto the wall around it to give it some room to breathe. If you'd prefer not to paint onto walls, you can adapt the design by, for example, drawing a single straight stem going up the door frame and adding singular leaves and flowers wherever there are inscriptions.

For this DIY, you'll need a shade of green paint that looks earthy like a vine. However, you'll still want it to be light enough that your child or grandchild's scribbles can show through. After you've found it, grab some colorful paints to add details like bees, butterflies, or flowers. You can also add glitter to your paint or buy some iridescent paint to add some dimension to your design. This could, for example, make it look like the leaves are glistening with morning dew. 

With a thin round detailing paint brush, start by drawing a green stem that weaves its way up the wall but doesn't directly overlap with any of the heights written on it. Instead, the stem should come within an inch or two of the height marks, so that you can later draw some leaves on them. The painted leaves should conceal the writing on the wall, while still allowing you to read the numbers through them. If needed, use a dark green thin-tip marker to go over the writing so it's more visible through the green paint. Once the height marks are all covered with leaves, add a few more decorative leaves throughout to balance out the design. From that original stem, you can also draw some secondary stems where it feels natural and top them up with some colorful flowers. 

This DIY works especially well to cover an existing height chart. However, you can also use it as a DIY project to measure your kids' heights in the future. For example, you could pre-draw all of the stems and flowers along the wall, with just a few decorative leaves throughout. Then, every time you write down a new height onto the wall, add a new leaf to cover up the date and name.