I suggest that you choose a plain white, or off-white, background for the main content area of your site.
Paper or cardboard effect textures could work well as backgrounds in smaller areas, such as the header, footer or other sections of the page.
Here are some free suggestions from subtlepatterns.com
A lightened version of Paper by Blaq Annabiosis
Light Paper Fibres by Jorge Fuentes
Rice Paper 2 by Atle Mo
Handmade Paper by Le Marquis
Other backgrounds to consider include:
- Seamless Rice Paper from Media Loot
- Subtle Paper from Pixeden
- Digital Paper Textures by Co-op Goods Co at Creative Market
- Seamless Paper & Cardboard Textures by MihaiNegru at Creative Market
- Seamless Paper Textures by Dezajno at the Hungry Jpeg
- Tileable Grunge Paper Textures by Elemis
- Free Seamless Papers by Magpie Paper Works
You could also consider using a hand-drawn seamless pattern as the background to a site with a boxed layout (pattern on either side of the central content box).
