Tour de Toile

Attic Gal Rachelle says:

I HEART Toile!  So when I saw that the Pretty Organizer was having a toile linking party today my heart skipped a beat.  If you love toile like I do, then head over to the Pretty Organized Palace to join the fun.  If you don't know what toile is, then pop over there and peruse around and you'll figure it out pretty quick.

And if you are visiting Out of the Attic for the first time, Welcome to our Attic!  I am Attic Gal Rachelle, and my partner in creative crime is Attic Gal Alysa.  To find out a bit more about us click here.  We hope you have fun digging around up in our Attic.

Well toile lovin' ladies, have I got some toile for you!

When I started taking stock of the toile in my life, I realized that I have toile in EVERY ROOM in my house (except, obviously the boys' rooms.  But if I thought I could get away with it in a cowboy room, or nautical room, I certainly would!)

Ready for the Tour de Toile?  Lets begin.

The Nursery:

When I was pregnant with baby #6, I found this absolutely opulent cream crib set, starring this gorgeous black toile bed skirt, at a garage sale for $30!  I had visions of a baby girl nursery with pink walls, and black and cream toile EVERYWHERE!  So, even though I didn't find out the sex of my baby, I snatched it up anyway.  I found the crib for $10 at another garage sale, and spray painted it black.  All ready for baby.  So when the baby girl I was certain was coming turned out to be boy #6, did I toss the black toile? Not on your life!  That baby slept his babydom away  in that crib, surrounded by toile, and I believe he will be a better man for it! 

 Earlier this month he turned three and moved into a big boy bed.  I tossed the crib, but I'm keeping the toile crib set just in case... (oh, I hope my hubby doesn't read that!)

And what about that pink room of my dreams?  Keep reading!

The Bathroom:

In the guest bathroom I have a stack of blue toile hatboxes, filled with, what else? Toilet paper.  So if you every drop by for a visit, need to use the powder room, and find a bare roll, remember to look in the hatboxes, conveniently located next to the toilet.

The Dining Room:

More hat boxes, these ones red and cream toile, sit atop the china cabinet.

The huge table cloth is a reverse red toile that looks perfect with my collection of red transfer ware that I have collected over the years.

The Hallway:

I have an ancestor wall in the entry hallway, that includes three of these collage frames with gold toile mats.

Grandma and Grandpa look so becoming in toile, don't you think?

The Kitchen:

OK, so I really don't have anything in the kitchen that is toile since the decor revolves around my collection of vintage printed tablecloths (remind me to do a post on those sometime), but I do have this super cute apron that I found at Ross just last week for only $8!  I don't really think it is actually toile, but close enough, and so cute I had to post it anyway.  It makes me want to put on a string of pearls and meet my hubby at the door with a loaf of fresh baked bread and fried chicken (except I don't want to get grease anywhere near this darling apron...so no fried chicken unless I get another apron to cover up this apron.  Hmmm)

My Bedroom:

This is my corner of the world from whence I do all my blogging.  Of course I have to have toile here.  A Target clearance toile slipcover hides a tired old ladder back chair at my flip down top desk.

But no Tour de Toile would be complete without a peek into the sanctuary of femininity that pays homage to all things Toile de Jouy... the pink room!

The Pink Room:

Remember the girl room I envisioned for baby girl that never came?  Well, I did it anyway - just for ME!  It is my toile-licious craft room/studio and my favorite place on earth! (OK, I might like it more if it was located in a villa in Tuscany.  But its not, and I still love every inch of it!)  I won't show you all of it right now, just the toile-y stuff.

I made the curtains out of black toile fabric and trimmed it with black grosgrain ribbon...

then tied it back with big antique bone buttons.

I wanted to cover the window seat cushion in this striped fabric, but there wasn't quite enough fabric, so I sewed it into a sleeve with ribbon ties, then just tucked a piece of toile fabric on each end to cover the exposed upholstery foam.  I love the look.

I ditched the stupid sliding mirror doors on the closet, and made toile curtains instead.  They make the contents of the closet much more accessible.  All my fabric was found clearance, so the window fabric was different from the closet fabric, but since they are across the room from each other, nobody even notices.

A toile-ish clock.

Like my toile storage drawers?

The ribbon pull tabs on the drawers are labeled with homemade metal edged tags.

Wanna know how I made it?

I repurposed the small set of drawers I got at Ikea years ago, as you can see from the drawers on the top.  I didn't like the notches cut out of the tops of the drawer fronts, so I simply turned the drawers around and drilled holes for the ribbon pulls in the back sides.  Then painted everything black, and decoupaged on some toile wrapping paper I discovered serendipitously at the dollar store.

More drawers done the same way.

A toile frame.  It's OK.  That's the baby who is used be swathed in toile.

My inspiration board was an old frame I picked up for a buck at a garage sale.  I cut a piece of plywood backing, and with some batting, ribbon, upholstery tacks and a leftover piece of toile, I made a perfect place to display my pretties.

Romantic tolie band boxes, another garage sale find.

I also found this toile shade at a garage sale and trimmed it up with a little glitz and glam, just like I like it.

A stack of toile file folders make any office special.

Attic Gal Alysa gave me these Anna Griffith toile file folders.  Too pretty to file away, they sit out all the time.

For extra seating when the girlfriends come over to craft, I recovered the rotting fabric on these old folding card table chairs - toile on the seats, and pink brocade underneath.  I LOVE these chairs!  $3 for the pair!

Another chair for the room.  It was ugly and cheap, but with a little black spray paint and a little toile, it is now a throne fit for the Queen (that's me, by the way.)

Well, that's just a peak into my pink room.  I'll show you the whole room all in another post sometime, OK?

Oh, and being a stamper, I even have my share of toile stamps.  Stampin' Up had some great toile inspired stamps.  Unfortunately they have discontinued all of them, but if you can get a hold of 'Serendipity', 'Toile Blossems,' or 'Avian Toile', then you can stamp up all the toile you want.  Here is a linen photo album I stamped up years ago.

Just last night I was feeling inspired so I stamped this toile inspired wood clock, then trimmed it off with two kinds of grosgrain ribbon, an antique hand carved bone button, and a pearl.  I love the bird.  It gives a new meaning to "time flies."

And that completes Out of the Attic's Tour de Toile.  But all of this came out of Rachelle's Attic, you say.  What about Attic Gal Alysa?  The funny thing is as much as Alysa professes to love toile, she doesn't have a stitch of it in her house!  Alysa, girl, you better get over to the Pretty Organized Palace, because she's throwing quite a posh shindig (and I hear she has chocolate),  and start clicking on links until you get some inspiration.

Thanks for rummaging around in our decked out toile-licious attic today.  If you enjoyed yourself, please come back and dig around our attic again!

Happy toile-ing!