From Laurie to Laurie

Laurie sent me a set of envelopes she made for me to send. The last one has been sitting in my 'to mail' pile for ages, as I wasn't sure which stamp to pair it with, or who to send it to.

In the end, I sent it back to Laurie. She paints onto the envelopes, so it is a bit tough to write over the bumpy paint, plus my hand lettering is not the greatest. I think she'll be surprised.

Sunday stamps - woodlands, forests, parks or gardens

For today's Sunday Stamps theme I chose the 2012 Ladybird Johnson souvenir sheet issued to commemorate her birth centennial. One stamp is of Mrs Johnson, the other five promote planting trees and flowers. 

I like her quote used on the sheet, "For the environment after all is where we all meet; where we all have a mutual interest; it is one thing that all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become."

These five stamps are adapted from stamps issued in 1966...

...and 1969.

I haven't used all the stamps on this sheet; here is an envelope sent out using one. 

And one I received.

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Bonus Sunday Stamps.

USPS issued a set of four stamps featuring water lilies on March 20th. The flowers were photographed at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in Washington, DC, although oddly the first day of issue ceremony was held in Cleveland, Ohio.

Here are three of them on outgoing international mail, a perfect match for Easter cards.

The normal run for sets of stamps is around 20-40 million, however in this case USPS expects high demand, and printed 500 million stamps. They are sold in booklets of 20, so this translates to approximately 25 million booklets. The article contains beautiful enlarged images of the stamps. Some of the detail is lost on the stamps themselves, the lily pads and background features being quite dark. 

For even bigger stamp images, go to this link and click on 'zoom". Here's the purple water lily as a teaser (I think this is the one that loses the most background detail on the stamp itself).

Envelope Exchange 2014: #258 to Christy

A part of Two Lakes by Walter J Phillips.

I thought the colors on this stamp matched well.

And the back.