Sandra Payne was born in Fairbanks, Alaska. Her family moved to Sulawesi, Indonesia, when she was 12. At 14, she attended boarding school in Lech Am Arlberg, Austria. After boarding school, she finished high school and began college in the Seattle area. She finished two undergraduate degrees (a B.S. in Marketing and a B.S. in Management) at Oklahoma State University. Later, she finished a Masters in English at the University of North Texas. She's lived in Los Angeles with her husband, Perry, since 1999.
In May of 2008, she won $10,000 in the "Remake Your Shake" video contest for Tic Tac.
Won the Austin Film Festival Trailer competition in 2004, 2005 and 2007.
Won a Platinum Remi Award from WorldFest Houston in 2009 for video game promo, "Everybody Games.".
She appeared on the December 29, 2021, episode of Wheel of Fortune and went to the bonus round.