Eight new backgrounds have just been added. This group was made with India ink, bubble wrap, stamps from the Brooklyn flea market and the ink from a dry erase marker I tampered with (I ignore warning stickers about exploding ink, you know, because I’m a rebel).

I also have a Tumblr now, for posting stuff that I didn’t make. It’s mostly pretentious literary quotes, old photos (like the one above), and animated gifs of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

-Sarah

View all backgrounds

Holy hiatus, Batman!
I haven’t updated for a long time due to crazier than usual life circumstances. I’ve moved three times in six months and at one point was working like four jobs at the same time. But the clouds from the hurricane are starting to dissipate (and yes there was a literal hurricane, plus a minor earthquake and a small fire) so now I can get back to updating this stupid site again, though probably with less frequency than before.

I’ve updated the look of this place just a little bit, so if anything looks a little skewed or misaligned then it might just be temporary.

Other than that, four new backgrounds for today, plus hopefully many more to come!

Cheers,
Sarah

And probably for the first time ever I didn’t use Illustrator to make any of these. In fact they’re mostly made with office supplies and old taco napkins. Let no one accuse me of not be resourceful.

Happy Halloween!
-Sarah

Cheers,
Sarah

I’m working on an eleven-year-old laptop with a battery that scalds people and a CD-ROM drive so dysfunctional that I now use it to store small notes. Also my fancy new(ish) digital camera has sadly been broken, presumably after taking a beating on the mean streets of the Big Apple. So if these images look a little more primitive than normal, it’s because they are.

I am still technically on vacation. This is like one of those vacations where like, you know, you get a part-time job and pay rent and sign up for classes and get a library card…

Love,
Sarah

When I was at Rockefeller Center taking one of these photos, this old fellow approached me and asked, “Do you want me to take your picture? ” with the most pity in his voice imaginable. And it occurred to me that anyone who was not familiar with the movie Amelie probably just thought I was slightly deranged.

With love,
Sarah

So I’m in New York now, and will be for a while. Lately my plans have consisted of hitting up every single museum in the city, starting with the Frick Collection (mostly because you can shout out its funny name while you are figuring out which subway stop to get off at – Where the frick is the fricking Frick Collection?!!). Since I’m sort of out and about lately I haven’t made any new patterns, so here’s hoping that the assortment of worldwide textiles I found at the American Museum of Natural History satisfies any need for pretty pretty prints.

I’m sorry for posting these divorced from their original context because now I can’t remember which images are Turkish textiles and which are Azerbaijani, or which early Peruvian culture wove what.

Have a lovely evening.

Yours,
Sarah

I decided that I was going to create a unified group of patterns, much like
fabric collections that get released every season. How did that go? Frankly, not great.

There are some pretty florals here, but they are all done in different styles- photorealism, art deco, something vaguely Japanese…

Consistency is not my forte, apparently.

So then I was like BOO I am just going to draw some cowboys.

These are all people that were involved in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which was a big deal at the turn of the century.

-Sarah

Many thanks to all the readers of this blog. I could not have made it this far without the encouragement and feedback I’ve received over the years.

-Sarah

Six new backgrounds are now up!

To make this group of patterns, I used acrylic paint, markers, a circle template, design software, and um… lipstick.

Enjoy!
-Sarah