Ideas for greetings cards and what to say in them

Writing the best greetings card can mean different things to different people.

First, it may mean that you have bought a card and are stuck on the personal message to write inside.

If that’s the case, then no problem – we have that covered for you! Simply stop what you are doing right now (reading this) and head over to our Inspirations Page, for loads of great suggestions to get you started!

Alternatively, you may be designing your own card and want to know the best way to express yourself on the front – in which case, stick around here for some great tips!

Designing a greeting card for any occasion can add a real personal touch and is a wonderful gift all by itself.

But it’s not just about choosing the best image or photo, choosing the right words to express yourself can sometimes be hard. Usually, once you get started though, the words soon come, so if you are stuck for an idea, the best advice is simply to pick up a pen and start writing – anything – but just begin. Once you have a few ideas jotted down, you can choose the message you like best and then work on it a little to make it perfect.

Once you have an idea of the message you want to put on your card, then check the spelling, check it makes sense, and you’re done!

To help you, we’ve laid out a few thoughts below on writing greeting card messages below – they are not “rules” (and anyway, rules are made to be broken, right?) but these are the writing guidelines we suggest for our professional card designers.

DID YOU KNOW?

Boomf not only have an amazingly huge card selection to choose from, but they also have a ‘Design your own’ service on the website?

Simply upload any image or photo and design away! You can even design your own card and then add a Ta-Dah, Wild Card or Flutter to it.

Our best-selling, most popular item, the exploding Boomf Bomb, is perfect for you to design your own, as you get to upload loads of different photos if you want to. Have a go at one today!

Writing guidelines for card designs

There are no hard and fast rules for greetings on cards – grammar rules can be bent or even broken and that’s fine – as long as the message makes sense.

However, there are a few suggestions to keep in mind when crafting a perfect greeting.

Yes, they are general suggestions, not hard and fast rules – there is no one ‘right’ way of expressing anything – but for general principles, they may help.

MY and THE with family members

“Happy Birthday to my best Brother” sounds fine at first – however, ‘best’ indicates that you have more than one brother, but you don’t like the other ones as much.

“Happy Birthday to the best Brother” works much better – it doesn’t suggest multiple brothers  – but it does say that out of all the brothers in the world – yours is the best.

This is particularly important with mum/dad cards; saying “my coolest Dad” means that you have several dads – but think this one is the coolest. If you have one dad (as most people do) – this is nonsense. If you have more than one dad, then it’s favouritism.

And you can build on the basic suggestions below – instead of “my amazing friend”, you could expand to “one of the most amazing people I know – and my best friend”)

If you want a general guideline that works in most cases, here it is this:

2. Don’t use THE with Non-comparative Statements, awesome, gorgeous, fantastic, amazing etc, as they are not personal.

Fonts

Careful with some fonts – there are some amazing fonts out there, but if you pick one that makes an R look like a Z (and there are a few that do) then you’ll be saying “Happy Bizthday Sistez” before you know it.

You may want to say that, of course, in which case, fill your boots! But otherwise, look carefully at the font you choose to run with.

Appropriateness

Greetings cards are great – and some close-to-the-edge fun can be brilliant – but think about the appropriateness of the message.

Examples:

• A cannabis leaf on a card can be VERY appropriate – but perhaps not to grandmother.
• To my sweet dad is a great message, but not with a 25 ‘number’ birthday – this means the giver is a son/daughter around age...4 or 5 at most?
• Happy 90^th to my son – the giver must be minimum 105-110 years old, and there are not too many of those shopping online for greetings cards.
• Swear words – nothing wrong with them – “Have a fucking great birthday” – but use appropriate imagery – these messages are likely to not fit so well on a cute doggie card – unless that is the humour angle you are deliberately aiming for, of course.

Adjectives

You don’t always need an adjective! Sometimes “Happy Birthday Dad!” is quite enough

Having said that – sometimes more is not less and you want to create something a little more eloquent.

Again – no hard rules, but here’s a starting point to get you going…also – it’s OK to make up some of your own (amazeballs, bestest, awesomest are not real words – just don’t overdo it).

For male / female / relatives :

 – take a moment to think about appropriateness again. In nearly all cases, these words are interchangeable, but while there’s nothing wrong with saying ‘my beautiful brother’ – there may not be so many brothers who want to be called that. Likewise, it would be best to avoid “Stunning Dad” and so on.

This is a basic starter list – don’t restrict yourself to it. Create your own list and add your own to keep your cards fresh and your ideas going.