Growing Up

I've been keeping track of my kids height with pencil on the kitchen wall.  They keep growing  (lots of oatmeal) and my wall keeps getting more pencil on it. I've been wanting to create some sort of frame for the space that we hang all of their art.  

Jasper's on a nature kick, lots of forest animals and trees so I thought I'd take that idea and integrate it with my need for a proper growth chart using pieces of balsa wood. It does a dual job of measuring the kids and dividing the space. I'll add a new height every 6 months. I put mom and dad on there so that they can set some goals. 

Because balsa wood is so thin and light weight, I was able to tack the trunk to the wall, made up of three 3" wide pieces.  I used smaller 1" wide pre-cut pieces for the branches (left over from the sunburst mirror project).  

The leaves were created by tracing an oval onto the backside of the leftover larger balsa pieces.  I scored the outline and used a pair of sharp scissors to cut out the shape.  I marked the name, height and date on the leaf.  Both the branch and the leaf are attached with foam tape.