Posts by Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met and Manager of My Modern Met Store. She is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art where she earned her BFA in Illustration and MFA in Illustration Practice. Sara is also an embroidery illustrator and writer living in Seattle, Washington. She runs Bear&Bean, a studio where she stitches pet portraits and other beloved creatures. She chronicles the creativity of others through her website Brown Paper Bag and newsletter, Orts. Her latest book is Threads of Treasure: How to Make, Mend, and Find Meaning Through Thread, published in 2014. Sara’s work has been recognized in Be Creative With Workbox, Embroidery Magazine, American Illustration, on Iron and Wine’s album Beast Epic, among others. When she’s not stitching or writing, Sara enjoys planning things that bring together the craft community. She is the co-founder of Camp Craftaway, a day camp for crafty adults with hands-on workshops in the Seattle area.
Inspiring
November 16, 2022

Best Friends Move In Together and Are Helping Raise Each Other’s Kids

There's more than one way to be a family. For some people, their friends are their family. These folks, though not related by blood, offer the same type of support that loved ones typically provide. Two best friends named Samantha Best and Lauren Robinson are putting this into practice. The 24-year-old and 26-year-old, respectively, moved in together with their young kids and live as platonic partners.

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Books
November 15, 2022

Photographer Celebrates Rainbow Hummingbird Wings in Beautiful Bird Book [Interview]

A decade ago, Rio de Janeiro-based artist and photographer Christian Spencer made an amazing discovery. At certain sun-lit angles, hummingbird wings transform into tiny fluttering rainbows. They become prisms in the sky—a fact that Spencer only learned after seeing the creatures appear in his film The Dance of Time slowed down to 5% of its normal speed. The discovery launched Spencer into a series aptly called Winged Prisms.

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Creative Products
November 11, 2022

25 Contemporary Advent Calendars To Help You Count Down to Christmas in Style

With December quickly approaching, the countdown to Christmas is about to officially begin. One popular way to mark the time is with an advent calendar, in which each day reveals a new trinket until you reach December 25. Typically, these small items are an assortment of candy treats or toys for kids. But recently, companies have been introducing contemporary advent calendars that are a twist on tradition.

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Toys
November 8, 2022

Creative Crafter Transforms Kid’s Drawings Into Crochet Dolls They Can Cuddle

Kids have the best imaginations, and one artisan is helping to make their visions a reality. For nearly two decades, Violeta Vasilevičiūtė-Pocienė of VioletaOwl has been creating amigurumi crochet dolls based on children’s drawings. The results are adorable and highlight how these tiny artists are delightfully unencumbered by things like real-life scale and proportion to make sketches that are totally unique. No two projects are alike.

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My Modern Met

Celebrating creativity and promoting a positive culture by spotlighting the best sides of humanity—from the lighthearted and fun to the thought-provoking and enlightening.