toile de jouy

Hey friends!

Sophie here, how are you? I’ve been really ill with a cold for the past few days so I won’t inflict any pictures of myself on you, however I have done a bit of DIY to keep myself busy so I thought I’d show you what I’ve been up to! 

  

B&Q Toile Blue Gold Wallpaper, £19.98

 

A few weeks ago I found this beautiful wallpaper , £19.98 at B&Q. It’s a pale blue-grey toile de jouy pattern on an off white background. The images are pastoral (little row boats, streams, bridges, houses that belong in the French countryside) and almost look like they’ve been painted on in watercolour. I fell in love with this as soon as I saw it, but as I rent an apartment I can’t really wallpaper properly so I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do with it. 

 

 I applied some to this little panel in my hallway, it’s only a small area but it does catch your eye as you walk in. As I said I’m not really supposed to paste it on properly (or if I did I’d have the joy of removing it when I leave) so I had to be a bit creative with sticking it up temporarily. I actually used white-tac, I know you’re cringing but I didn’t just stick four blobs in each corner, I made tiny thin strips to go all the way along all 4 edges, then spent about 3 years massaging it on, peeling it off and re-aligning! This really was as painstaking as it sounds but once I started I was determined to finish, and my hard work paid off as the edges are all nice and flat and neat and the people that have seen it thought I’d pasted it on!

  After cutting out my first panel, I stuck the piece I was left with just around the corner on a blank bit of wall. I think this ties the two sections of the hallway together and stops the other wall from looking a bit random on it’s own.

  

I also made these tapestry style wall-hangings which I’m really pleased with! This wasn’t as easy as it seemed in my head but I got there in the end. From B&Q I picked up 4 pieces of wooden beading / doweling, I chose quite thick ones to get the effect I wanted but they were super cheap, £1.99 each. My boyfriend helped me saw them down to size and file them off (and yes by helped me, I mean did this for me).

 

And there I am varnishing / staining them, I used B&Q’s own interior wood varnish in antique pine (£5.98) and they came out a really nice colour after just one coat.

The next step was to glue the edges of the wallpaper panels (top and bottom) to the doweling and wrap it around slightly so you can’t see the join. I also bought some gold chain (B&Q again) to hang them up with, I attached the chain to the poles using gold push pins, and then used a single gold push pin to hang them on the wall (this way it will only leave a tiny hole).

And here they are in action!

 As I was on a roll, I also made this for the hallway to hang up our keys:

 

Wilko photo frame gold effect, £2.40

 The frame was stupidly cheap from Wilko’s, £2.40! I just removed the glass and the back, cut a piece of my wallpaper to size and used two of my gold push pins as key hangers.

 

 

Thanks for reading guys! I know it hasn’t been the usual post but I hope you enjoyed it, and maybe I’ve given you some ideas if you rent too :)

Lots of loves

Sophie x