We are very pleased to announce the release of the Lady Bird Johnson souvenir sheet! The new release was dedicated earlier today in a ceremony at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas.

The Lady Bird Johnson souvenir sheet features six stamps. The five stamps on the left side of the sheet commemorate the visible legacy left by Mrs. Johnson’s beautification projects. These stamps, originally issued in the 1960s with art by Walter D. Richards and Gyo Fujikawa, have been adapted for printing in offset lithography by artist Paloma Alcalá.

Each stamp bears a caption and an image to encourage participation in beautification projects. The top stamp reads “Plant for more Beautiful Streets” and shows a row of blooming crab apple trees along a paved suburban road. The second from the top offers the encouragement to “Plant for more Beautiful Parks,” with an image of a field of daffodils along the Potomac River with the Washington Monument in the background. “Plant for a more Beautiful America,” the center stamp, depicts the Jefferson Memorial seen through branches of flowering cherry blossoms. The fourth stamp is a scene of yellow and blue wildflowers along a highway with the caption “Plant for more Beautiful Highways.” The last stamp, which reads “Plant for more Beautiful Cities,” shows plantings of pink and red azaleas and white tulips with the U.S. Capitol in the distance.

The single stamp on the right side of the sheet features the official White House portrait of Mrs. Johnson. An oil painting by Elizabeth Shoumatoff, the portrait—courtesy of the White House Historical Association (White House Collection)—shows the First Lady, seated, wearing an empire-waist gown of golden yellow.

The black-and-white image of Mrs. Johnson that appears on the sheet was taken from a family photograph shot in 1963 by Yoichi Okamoto.

The Lady Bird Johnson stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate. At the time of issuance, the stamps are being sold at a price of 45 cents each or $2.70 per souvenir sheet.

In 2013, we hope you will join us in welcoming the Year of the Snake with a bang! The new lunar year begins February 10, 2013, and we’ll be celebrating with the release of this, the sixth of twelve stamps in the Celebrating Lunar New Year series. The series, which began in 2008, will continue through 2019 with stamps for the Year of the Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar.

The gorgeous Year of the Snake stamp features original artwork by illustrator Kam Mak, who grew up in New York City’s Chinatown and now lives in Brooklyn. The artwork for the stamp series focuses on some of the common ways the Lunar New Year holiday is celebrated. For the Year of the Snake, the illustration—originally created using oil paints on panel—depicts firecrackers of the sort commonly used to greet the new year.

The stamp design also incorporates two elements from the previous series of Lunar New Year stamps—Clarence Lee’s intricate paper-cut design of a snake and the Chinese character for “Snake,” drawn in grass-style calligraphy by Lau Bun.

The Year of the Snake stamp will be issued as a Forever® stamp in 2013. (Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate.) An official release date has not yet been set, but the stamps are . There is also !

How do you plan to celebrate the lunar new year?