Birthday Messages with a Sense of Humor

When you need something funny to write about birthdays, just think about the details of how people are made.  Some funny ideas can come out of simple biology.  Here are a few funny birthday examples, just using the picture to the right.

1. "Happy birthday! Maybe you can get back into swimming this year.  You used to love swimming."
2. "Good thing you got over that awkward crazy tail phase."
3. "You won! Congratulations on getting the prize and getting to be born.  Happy birthday."
4. "Where and what were you doing nine months before your birthday?"
5. "Good thing we can't remember anything from before we were born, right?  Happy birthday! Here's to not remembering."
6. "I remember when you were just a little guy.  Happy birthday!"
7. "You were the most competitive among your peers... at least before you were born."

I'll include a video of a robot birth to give you some more inspiration to write the best birthday message you can.

I found a blog that mentions that some card messages are becoming very specific.  For example, some get well cards specifically say congratulations for surviving cancer for one year.  Some people might think this takes all the thought out of writing your own card message and it would be too difficult to find that specific card when you need it. 

I say NONSENSE!  Everyone would feel much more special if they had their own card that is just for them.  For example, if you are a one eyed, 46 year old, short, fat, musician, who is going to go though ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) then there is no reason you shouldn't have a big company like Hallmark tailor to your demographic. 

This can actually be done with print on demand greeting cards, but it might be difficult to find someone to design your card.  The possibilities are endless.  As for the ECT card message, someone has come up with a few on their blog.  Here's the link and the ECT card message examples:

From allittlespark.wordpress.com

• Outside of the card: “Heard you were having ECT…”
  Inside: “Hope the treatment goes shockingly smoothly.”
• Outside of the card: “You said you needed more sparks in your life,”
  Inside: “I guess you’re getting them now.  Get well soon.”
• Outside of the card: “You may experience some memory loss…”
  Inside: “At least you might get to forget all the bad times! Hope your treatment goes well.”

Maybe in the near future we will see the ECT section of greeting cards at our local drugstore.  Until then, we'll have to make our own card messages as specific as we can on our own.

Love Poems for Anniversary Messages

Sometimes it's appropriate to write an anniversary poem in your anniversary card.  Your poem can stand alone as your card message, or you can write a message with your poem. 

Either way, you may need help writing your poem, or you may want to use a poem already written that can help you express what you want to express.

Here are a couple examples of anniversary poems you can use for your anniversary card.  If you are up for the challenge, you can write a love poem on your own.

Anniversary Poem Examples:

Caught Together
Time caught us together again
I like getting caught with you
You stay my mine and I Yours
A year gone by again is fun

Sweet Aging
Our relationship ages but we stay the same
The taste is always sweet year after year
The time is a marker of the meaning we have
and the significance grows with our love

Can You Fake Creativity?
You might wonder how some people seem to be able to come up with awesome greeting card messages every time.  They seem to be witty and make it seem like writing in a card is fun. There are a few things you can do to fake creativity too.  Follow these tips for writing great greeting card messages.

1. The Inside Joke: Think of anything that you and the person you are writing the card know about.  This is the basis for inside jokes that you can use in your card.  So, if you are writing a message for a golf lover, then you can refer to golf in their card message. So you can write something like, "Good thing golf is an old man's sport," for a birthday message.
   
2. Funny Twist:  You can come up with a twist on something when you identify two things that are totally unrelated and look for similarities.  For example, maybe you are writing a thank you message, and you think of something unrelated like "bread," and then you think "dough" is what they gave me.  Then you can write a funny message for the person like, "Thanks for giving me some dough, now I can make some bread." Then you might draw a little picture of you making bread.  This is a ridiculous example, but you get the idea.
3. Steal Someone's Concept:  With the internet around, it's easy to "google" birthday jokes.  Then all you have to do change them for your birthday message.  Sometimes you can take an "old person" joke and reverse it to make it sarcastic.  Other times you might change the details of the joke to fit the interests of the receiver of the card.

Don't give up.  There is a fine line between creative genius and immature ramblings, so practice until you surprise yourself with something brilliant.  Start with easy cards like birthday and baby shower cards and work your way up to the more difficult cards like get well or sympathy cards.  Remember, sometimes you don't need to be creative, just a sincere, thoughtful message will work.

Love Poems for Cards
There may be nothing more romantic than writing a love poem for your girlfriend, wife, boyfriend, or husband.  Especially when you don't want to just write the simple "Happy Anniversary" of "Happy Valentines Day" message.  Love poems are best used during romantic occasions, and are a cheap, yet effective, way to show how important someone is to you.

Steps for How to Write a Love Poem

1. List all the positive qualities that you love about your significant other.  For example, you might want to list that she has a heart of gold and is willing to spend time with you.
2. List pleasant times you have had together.  Then list some of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings you had during those pleasant times.  This will give your poem some artistic attributes, and build imagination.
3. Focus your information on what you think is most important about your sweet heart.  So, if you think she's great looking, but you really love the way she flirts, then focus your poem on the flirting and use her looks as a minor piece in the poem.
4. Get started.  It doesn't matter how you start, but you have to get started.  I suggest focusing line by line at first, converting what you have already written into poem form.
5. Revise.  Look for awkward parts, lines that are too long, or cliche's such as "I love you to death."   Then edit them into a concise piece for your girlfriend. 
   
6. Let someone else look it over if you are unsure. 
   
7. Make sure you present your message well.  So, you can write it in a card, or you may need to come up with a different thing to write  it one.  You might even text message (SMS) your poem.

Love poems have been written at least since old testament Bible times.  If you haven't read Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, you will discover that there are many steamy lines of poetry to be found even in the Bible. Read it for some inspiration.

Sometimes all you need is a few words of sympathy to get your mind going enough to write in your sympathy card.  Messages of sympathy can actually be spoken, texted, written, or e-mailed, but finding the right words for sympathy messages can be challenging to say the least.  Here are a few words of sympathy to help you know what to put in your message.

Sorry, Saddened, Surprised, Cherished, Inspired, Beautiful, Felt
Deeply, Sincerely, Thoughtfully, Kindly, Regards, Care
Life, Death, Passing, Suffering, Comfort, Joy, Tears, Pain, Grief, Loss

Using these words of sympathy in your messages of sympathy will give them the flavor that sympathy messages usually have.  Something like, "I am sorry to hear of the loss of your husband.  Please accept my deepest sympathy, sincerely."