A birthday card is smaller inside than it looked in the shop, and the printed verse has often taken half. So what to write in a birthday card is mostly a question of what to leave out.
Their name goes at the top. Under it, one line only you could write, about their dog, say, or the night the tent flooded. The sign-off should match how close you really are.
Space decides the rest.
What to write in a birthday card, in three parts
Write the middle line first. It's the hard one, and once it's down, the other two take ten seconds.
For the greeting, spell their name the way they do. An envelope that says Katherine when she's Kathryn gets noticed before the card's even out.
"Happy birthday" is optional. The front has said it already, in gold.
The middle line needs one thing only you'd know, like a habit of theirs or a place you've both been. So "thanks for the lift to the airport at 5 am" beats "you're amazing". It proves you were paying attention.
Sign-offs tell them how close you think you are, and they'll notice if you pitch it wrong.
The last example breaks the shape on purpose. Sometimes one line and a name is the whole card.
- Dear Margaret, thanks for taking in every parcel this year, even the one that rattled. Happy birthday. Best wishes, Sam at number 12
- Happy birthday, Dad. You still read the paper back to front, and I still pinch the sports pages. Love, Ellie
- Jo, happy 30th. Glad it was you at the next desk the week the printer jammed. Cheers, Farhan
- The car park behind the library, you jogging beside my bike in your work shoes. Thank you. Ana
Sign-offs, coldest first
Love causes the most trouble. It's too much for anyone you only know from work, and for family anything colder looks like a sulk.
- Kind regards, for your landlord. Under a cartoon balloon it reads like an email.
- Best wishes
- All the best
- Warm wishes, for a coworker you actually like
- Cheers, between mates in the UK or Australia
- Take care, after a rough year
- See you Saturday, or whichever day you'll next meet
- Love
- Lots of love
- All my love, for partners. On a parent's card it sounds like you're emigrating.
- xx and your name, for people who'd laugh at anything longer
Birthday card messages, person by person
Parents keep cards for decades, often in a plastic folder in the bottom drawer, so expect to read yours again.
Most lines here are the middle part only, so add their name above and your sign-off below. Change any detail that isn't yours. Each set links a matching HeartCraft birthday card too.
Mum
Swap in Mom, Mam, Ma or Mummy, whatever she answers to.
- This one's for the fridge door, next to last year's and the one before.
- Still the first person I ring when the car makes a new noise.
- Front row at every school play, even the year I was a lamp post.
- Love you more than the good scissors.
- Every present you give me comes in a gift bag I gave you first.
- You taught me thank-you notes. This is one, 25 years late.
- Prop this against the kettle.
- Thanks for always knowing where my shoes were.
If she lives a flight away, a birthday card for mum reaches her phone the minute you send it.
Dad
- Happy birthday, Dad. Thanks for teaching me to drive and only grabbing the handbrake twice.
- You still sign your texts "Love, Dad", in case I've forgotten who you are.
- To the man who reads the instructions first.
- My shelves are straight because you made me use a spirit level.
- Can't reverse park to this day. Your fault.
- Thanks for the lifts home after midnight, no questions asked.
- One more candle than last year. Stand back.
Print the QR code from a birthday card for dad and tape it inside the paper one for him to scan.
Wife
- Eleven years in, and I'd still carry that sofa up four floors for you.
- You still steal the duvet. Keep it.
- I'd marry you again, on a day with less rain.
- My best audience. You still laugh at the one about the cows.
- Happy birthday to the woman who remembers every birthday in both our families.
- Best person I know to get lost with.
The Sky Lanterns design on a birthday card for your wife has lanterns for her to release on her phone.
Husband
- Thanks for every spider you've carried outside in a glass, even the one in the bath.
- Every frosty morning my car's already scraped. Happy birthday, hero.
- Worst present-hider alive. I found mine in August.
- Love you, even in that jumper.
- Yours is the only snoring I'd miss.
- Another year of you arguing with the satnav, and me taking its side.
- The golf is growing on me. Slowly.
For a husband who won't sit through a long card, a husband's birthday card takes about a minute on his phone.
Girlfriend
- Our first date was bowling and you won by 60 points. I haven't recovered.
- You're the only person I'd let pick the music on a five-hour drive.
- Your cat still doesn't like me. You do, which is what counts.
- Half my fries, every time. Happy birthday, thief.
- I'd wait outside any shop for you. I have.
- Love, and a slightly embarrassing amount of it.
She pops balloons and blows out candles on her own screen before your letter appears on the birthday card for your girlfriend.
Boyfriend
Arcade, the design built like a retro handheld game, is the pick on a birthday card for a boyfriend who still owns his school console.
- You've slept through every film we've seen at the cinema. Happy birthday anyway.
- Love you. Please stop doing the voice.
- A week to learn my coffee order. Yours took me a month.
- Your dog likes me best. Happy birthday, second favourite.
- Four identical grey T-shirts, and you call it a look.
- I'd sit through another three-hour football match for you. Probably.
- One dish, nailed every time. Happy birthday, chef.
- Nothing good happened on a Tuesday until you.
Best friend
- Your yellow raincoat lives at mine now.
- Twenty years since the zoo trip, and we still can't read a map.
- You've seen my worst haircut and still stand next to me in photos.
- Nobody tells my stories better than you. I've stopped minding.
- Thanks for the sofa bed and every 3 am talk in your kitchen.
- Love you, you absolute disaster.
- If we're ever arrested, you're doing the talking.
- We've known each other longer than we haven't.
- Same photo booth face since 2009. Never change it.
There's a design called Bestie on the best friend birthday card, loud enough for your inside jokes.
A friend
- Glad you sat next to me at pottery class. The bowl's still wonky.
- My favourite person at the dog park, and I'm counting the dogs.
- Lunch is on me. Somewhere with cloth napkins.
- Proper catch-up soon. I mean it this time.
- You're the reason I own a sourdough starter. It's alive, just.
- Cheers to you, and to the 7:40 bus we nearly missed all through 2019.
Friends who've moved abroad might like Miles Apart on the birthday card for a friend, where a letter flies to them.
Sister
- Sorry about the line I drew down the middle of our bedroom.
- You told on me in 2004. I forgive you, as a present.
- Return my straighteners. Love you.
- My black dress went to three weddings with you and came back by post.
- Your eyeliner flick is still the only one I can do.
- Twelve years of bunk beds and never the top one. I'm nearly over it.
- We look more like Dad every year. You first, though.
Her flatmates won't get past the 4-digit passcode you can put on a birthday card for your sister.
Brother
- You owe me roughly 4,000 front seats. I've kept count.
- Thirty-four and you still put empty cereal boxes back in the cupboard.
- Thanks for driving me to every exam with the radio off. You were more nervous than me.
- Taller than me since you were 14, and still awful at board games.
- I'd lend you my car again. The old one.
- From your favourite sibling, as Mum has confirmed in writing.
You get a 9:16 video with a brother's birthday card, sized for an Instagram story he'll swear he never watched.
Grandparents
- Lily did the drawing in the corner. She says it's you. It's a horse.
- Thanks for the boiled sweets in your handbag, always the right flavour.
- Your garden still beats anything I've grown in a pot.
- To Grandad, who taught me cards and never let me win.
- From all four of us, and the dog. That's his paw print by the fold.
Nothing needs installing on their end for a birthday card for grandparents, and the calm Classic design suits them.
A child
- Six is old enough to blow out every candle in one go.
- You lost a tooth this year and found a new laugh for the gap.
- Dinosaurs had millions of years. You've had seven and know all their names.
- To the fastest cartwheeler on our street.
- Big hugs from Uncle Dev, who still owes you a go on the trampoline.
- Ten is double figures. Bigger cake, later bedtime.
- Keep asking "why". It's the best thing about you.
- Happy birthday, rocket scientist. Your cardboard rocket is still in our hall.
"Make a wish, Leo," says the cake screen on a birthday card for kids, and the Fruit Ninja design turns the whole card into a game.
The office card for a coworker you barely know
By the time the office card reaches you, it's been desk to desk in a brown envelope and there's two centimetres left by the fold. That's enough. For someone you know by their lanyard, what to write in a birthday card is one friendly line about work, without "love".
- Happy birthday, Anita. Thanks for the umbrella in October. I still have it.
- Take the long lunch.
- From the far end of the second floor, many happy returns.
- Thanks for fixing my spreadsheet in March. It still works.
- Hope the cake in the kitchen is the good kind.
- The 4 o'clock can wait. Enjoy your birthday.
- Best of luck with the year, and the coffee machine.
- We've only met in the lift. You always hold the door, though, and I've noticed. Happy birthday.
- Wishing you a quiet inbox, for one day at least.
- Save a slice for accounts. They're watching.
When all that's left is a corner
Squeezing a long line into a corner never works, because the last word bends round the edge. Pick a short one and write it at normal size. And don't go sideways up the margin.
- Happy birthday from the squashed bit.
- Fifty suits you.
- Cake first, emails after.
- See you by the kettle at 3.
- Have a slow morning, for once.
- Best laugh on our floor, by miles.
- You make Mondays bearable.
- Happy 40th. Not a day over 39.
- Thanks for every parcel.
- Coffee's on me, Friday.
- Big birthday, bigger cake.
- Go home early.
Funny birthday card messages
Brothers and best friends can take most of these. Your manager probably can't.
- Bought this in the card aisle at 6 pm. Best one left, like you.
- I'd have baked you a cake, but we both remember last time.
- Happy birthday to someone who still thinks the five-second rule is science.
- Another year of putting up with me. Frankly, you deserve a medal and a nap.
- Sitting down now comes with a sound effect. Welcome.
- Happy birthday, Alexand. The pen died. You know the rest.
- Your present is hidden somewhere in the house. I've forgotten where.
- This card sheds glitter. You'll be finding it in the sofa till March, and every time, you'll think of me.
- We needed a second box of candles this year. Just saying.
- If you're reading this, I remembered. Write that down.
If the card turns up late
Two lines are plenty for a late card. Say sorry once, near the top, then write the card you'd have written on time.
- Late, I know. The card was ready on the day and the stamp wasn't.
- Your birthday was Tuesday. I had this card in my bag on Tuesday. It's now Friday.
- Happy belated birthday. Hope someone saved me a slice.
- Behind everyone else, as usual, but the wish is the same size.
- The envelope's been on my hall table since the 3rd. Happy birthday, at last.
- Four days late, when you've never missed mine. Red pen on next year's calendar.
A whole card to yourself
Both inside pages are yours, and that's when people reach for adjectives. Spend the room on one memory with a real place in it, and stop before you sum it up.
Pen test first. A felt-tip on the left-hand page can bleed through to the front.
Hannah,
Happy 40th. This card's been on my kitchen table for a week, because there's a giraffe on the front and nothing I wrote seemed to go with a giraffe.
So you're getting the power cut instead. Second year, the whole street dark, and you found one tea light and half a packet of crackers. We sat on the stairs till 2 am deciding who we'd be at 40. You were going to be a vet with a farm. Me, I wanted matching plates.
I still don't own matching plates. You've got two dogs and a goat, which is close enough.
I don't say this out loud, so I'm writing it on a giraffe. You're the person I'd sit in the dark with again.
Big love, Claire
P.S. Bring the goat.
Frequently asked questions
Where in a birthday card do you write the message?
On the right-hand inside page, under the printed verse if there's one. If a verse takes the whole right side, the left page is yours, and nobody minds.
Should you write the date in a birthday card?
Only on a card that's likely to be kept, like a child's or a 50th. Write the year small, under your name.
Who signs first on a card from a couple or a family?
Whoever knows them best signs first. Kids can sign their own names once they can write, however much room it takes.
What if you've got more to say than a card can hold?
Fold a separate letter inside the card. Our guide to writing a birthday letter helps with the first line, usually the one that won't come.