Christmas Home Tour.

I recently opened my home to our town's Christmas Tour of Homes. Only some of our home was available for tour, but MAN did it take a big effort to get the house clean and in decent order to have nearly 300 strangers walk into my home.

While my home was in a clean state I thought I'd give you an updated and Christmas-y home tour.  

I hope you've enjoyed our Christmas home tour!

Linking up at : The Nesting Place, It's Overflowing, Remodelaholic, City Farmhouse, Thrifty Decor Chick, House of Rose.

Thrift Shop- Style.

Good evening friends! 

I just wanted to pop in and share a recent project that I whipped up.

I picked up these chairs at a thrift store recently for $20 each. 

They reminded me of chairs from a conference room  with a fun mid-century mod look.

It was really simple to unscrew the arm/leg pieces so that I could paint them. I used Minwax polyshades in classic black satin to paint the arms/legs. I love the polyshades stain because it doesn't require sanding and it has a built in sealer so it is really a one step process. I bought some quilt batting on sale at JoAnn's when I chose my upholstery fabric. I added 4 layers of batting to the seat and seat back just to add a little extra cushion and because I wanted to easily recover the chairs I decided not to take the orange pleather off.

I picked out a herringbone pattern in neutral colors.We have a neutral colored floral couch beside these chairs,  I like that the chairs have texture and pattern without putting out an overt design that conflicts with our couch.

I'm really happy with the way my chairs turned out. They are really comfortable and make such a neat addition to our sitting area. Thanks for stopping by!

Linking up at: Suburbs Mama, Six Sisters Stuff, Todays Creative Blog, Commona My House, Love Grows Wild, Home Coming.

A Few Little Things, in Mullet Form.

Hi Friends, 

I have a few things to share with you this evening and just like a mullet we are going to go business in the front and party in the back....

Business:

 If you've been reading here for a little while you might have noticed that our name or "title" has changed from "Sow Seeds of Love" to "Love The Tompkins".

This just kind of happened. When I started our blog I thought it would be cute to call it "Sow Seeds of Love" because that was the "theme" of our wedding. But the URL was already in use so I named our URL "Love the Tompkins"- this has caused a little confusion over the past 2 years of blogging so I decided it was time to streamline. I shed a little tear and now that I've officially changed it, I'm happy. 

Well, since that's out of the way it's time for the Par-Tay...

First, I was featured this week over at....

Commona My House

Go check it out!

AAAANNNND

I have a few free little printables for you all tonight.

The first is just a little laundry room art that I whipped up.

Feel free to print it here.

So, now that the holidays are here and company is coming I know how difficult it can be to keep everything in the house tidy and put away. I'm on the the Christmas home tour in our town this year and I'm a little stressed about making sure that everything stays clean through the three days of the tour without having to have a major cleaning overhaul and then not be able to live in my house for three days! I pinned this great daily cleaning schedule and just recently printed it out to keep myself on track. 

Get yours here.

And last, but not least the holidays means traveling. Whether you are having a babysitter come over for a few hours, having a pet sitter or asking a neighbor to keep an eye on your home Vivint knows whats up and exactly what you need.

Print yours right here. 

I hope this was fun and informative ;)

DIY Nautical Christmas Ornament

Dear friends, it's been long- too long since I've managed to squeak a little something out of this blog. I would promise that this would be the last time I go a long stint without posting, however I know how much you all don't like empty promises....and I know how behind I feel when I don't post. 

But all that aside I must confess, I haven't posted in order to get my ducks in a row and get everything on the same page so that in the coming weeks I can share with you all of the AMAZING projects I've been working on and completing!

EEEK!

One of these "projects" is getting my house ready for the Christmas home tour. This involves putting up 10 thousand trees and decorating every square inch of bare space. And if you know me, you'd know that I have to have a nautical/beach tree. I have a beautiful tree that I'm selectively placing ornaments on to create my sophisticated coastal style in christmas form. I have lots of polished ornaments and I was wanting to add some rugged, natural elements when I thought of those nautical ball knots. Yes, that is what I said nautical ball knots. I actually had no idea they even had a name up until about four days ago. They are called monkey fist knots, and they are the perfect little accents for my tree but they are really hard to tie and really- ain't no body got time for that.

So, I rustled up this little DIY for you guys in case you wanted to make your own monkey fist knots to turn in to ornaments or you can do a little something like this.....

Via West Elm

All I needed was foam balls- I chose large foam spheres because I wanted the ornaments to fill in the empty spaces on our christmas tree and really make it look full and pretty. 

Jute rope- I had a ton in my basement, 270 yards to be exact and it was all FREE! You can choose whatever size rope you want, just realize that a larger rope size will increase the size of your knot.

Hot glue- LOTS OF HOT GLUE.

Start by gluing and tightly wrapping your jute rope in a spiral pattern around your foam ball until your rope looks like this....

Once your foam ball looks like this, you will then turn it so that one of the blank "ends" is facing you.

Then wrap your ornament just as you did the first layer. Make sure you do the same amount of rows so that you get an even look. When you are finished it should look something like this...

Now you will want to hold your ornament with the top layer facing you and with the blank spaces on either side (as pictured above).

Next you'll want to cut strips of rope that will be glued in one blank space, bridge over the top layer of vertical rope and be glued in the other blank area.

Continue until the spaces are completely filled and do the same on the other set of blank spaces. 

Tip: If you can, squish the ends of the rope strips down under the first layer of rope so that it looks like the strips are coming from underneath of the first layer.

To make a hanger, make a loop of rope and then glue it to your ornament.

Wrap and glue a strip of rope around the base of the loop for a finished look.

I hope you enjoyed my little DIY moment.

Happy thanksgiving everyone!

Linking up at:

DIY Show Off, Kansas Women Bloggers, Suburbs Mama, Love Grows Wild, Averie Lane, Home Coming, Place of My Taste, House of Rose.

Building a Built-in Bench.

My breakfast nook area has an awkward space inhabited by nothing, but it was screaming for a built-in bench. 

See what I mean?

Pull a table up to it and throw in a few cute chairs and BAM! Perfect breakfast nook.

I knew it destined for greatness the moment I laid eyes on it.

I was poking around some of my favorite blogs and I found this wonderful highlight on The Woodgrain Cottage, where they added a fabulous built in bench to their breakfast nook.

So, I measured my negative space, decided on the dimensions I desired for the bench and purchased my materials.

Once I pried off the trim on the back wall, the quarter round on all three sides and The grate on the return vent, I constructed the supportive frame from 2x4's. Note: I made sure that I left space for the return vent.

Next I attached the MDF to the front and fit the internals of the return vent to the front of the bench.

I then attached MDF to the top of the bench, attached the trim and return grate.

I put the quarter round in place and painted the bench.

I have to say, I was REALLY nervous before I did this project! I was so sure that it would end up completely useless and lopsided! In hind sight though, this project was totally wood shop 101. It was a lot less intense than I originally thought and I'm so glad that I went through with it. I love the result! now all that is left to do is wait on the wall paper to arrive ( it should be in this week, I'm on pins and needles!!!), make a cushion and pillows for the bench and bring my table in from the garage! 

Well, one project down, 894,2345 to go!

Linking up at:

Suburbs Mama, Six Sisters Stuff, Blissfully Ever After, Love Grows Wild, Home Coming, Commona-My House, City Farmhouse, The Blissful Bee, Lil' Luna.