Toile De Jouy – A Colonial Pastoral Look by Mary Varley
The Toile de Jouy look comes from the 18th century fabric design created in France. This consists of a finely detailed picture, such as a country scene or cluster of flowers, repeated in a pattern across a surface. The pattern was woven in dark thread, usually black, dark red or blue but sometimes brown or green, on a background of white, off-white or pastel.
To give a colonial pastoral effect to your paper projects:
1. Select detailed rubber stamps with a scene or nature image.
2. Choose your background color of card stock based upon the mood or theme of your project.
3. Pick your stamp pad color the same way, or use black.
4. Ink up the image or images and stamp!
If you use a color for the image, make sure it’s darker than the background-the darker, the better. I used a scene of a woman and a girl under a tree for a sympathy card one time and it turned out beautifully. I stamped the image in dark gray on off-white, then trimmed the card with Navy blue and dark red on a gray card base.
Traditional color combinations of ink on paper:
