Sending a blank notelets or a blank charity card to family.

[girlfriend44]

Would you ever send a notelet blank card and use it as a birthday card or one of those free blank cards that charities give out as a bday card .
Writing happy birthday inside.
Does anyone send them to you?
I never would and would always buy a proper bday card.

Bonkers spending £3 on a piece of folded card and the 99p ones are reliably naff. The card industry have really got you hooked in if you think doing that every time a family member has a birthday is required for manners.

I'd rather have a nice blank card filled in with a personalised message. Or one aunt hand makes them, that's really special.

Blank cards are often much nicer. (My current box are these, what's not to like? saltsmillshop.co.uk/products/dog-days-by-david-hockney-16-notecards )

Sometimes when we have needed a handful of cards and picked them up in the supermarket it could cost £12/£15 for 4 or 5. For example on Fathers day we end up getting dad and grandad cards for both sides of the family. That's quite a chunk of money and I wouldn't blame anyone for finding a cheaper or more eco way of doing it.

Sometimes I have kept particularly nice cards to get out the following xmas/birthday/mother's/father's day and we don't buy one at all (within my little family)

I even gave my mum back her particularly beautiful xmas cards to me and individual ones for the kids with the suggestion she resend them the following year. It's the organisation to do this and not lose them that is the problem but it's good in principle.

Ecologically I think really we need to stop sending cards or find a new way of doing so.

never occurred to me that it would be something someone thought was wrong.
I choose pretty cards and generally prefer ones that are blank inside so I can write what I want.

I have a box of pretty cards I have picked up from all sorts of places - some might have been free

can't remember - but would happily send to anyone

except in-laws

• theirs have to be big and have to say, Mum, Dad, Nan & Grandad on the front and MIL always comments on how lovely the poem was
• I always put that down to being a Midlands thing

Not sure where the bullet points came from

I like blank cards as I tend to write bloody essays in them 😅 my DH is forever reminding me that a birthday card doesn't require plot development.

I'm exactly the same. Someone else's generic words are never going to be as thoughtful and personal as the words I write, knowing the person.

I rarely send cards these days, rarely receive them - certainly wouldn't be sniffy because it didn't say happy birthday

Yes I would and do. If I see nice cards without messages I buy them and keep them in my card stash ready to choose something special for an individual person, I especially like them if they look like original art works, are from small companies, have information about the artist on the reverse etc. I like knowing I have cards available. In my opinion they are always much more attractive than printed by the million birthday cards with naff little sentiments or even worse poems written inside. I have also used note cards as birthday cards in an emergency if they are especially attractive or appropriate, but am more likely to use these for , well, writing someone a note!

I mostly pick blank cards. Personally I’m not a fan of birthday cards and prefer something that is a nice picture I think the person will like. I just write my own message inside.

I really couldn't give a shit where people get their birthday cards, frankly. Who cares if it's from a pack of note cards? The point of a birthday card is to show someone you remembered their birthday, not to show that you make regular trips to Clinton's.

It doesn't matter whether they spent nothing on the card itself or £2.99, or whether the words 'happy birthday' are handwritten by them or pre-printed.

I just choose a card that I think the person will probably like. It might be one I bought specifically or it might be something I already had as part of a pack or that I just bought randomly in the past because I thought it might be nice for someone at some point. Actually I think the last card I sent was actually from a pack of blank notecards, which I sent to my sister because the artwork on it looked exactly like her dog.

I have used blank cards many times, @girlfriend44. Often I find that the most appropriate card for a particular person is a blank card, and I’d rather send the perfect card, and write in it myself, than settle for one that doesn’t suit them as well.

I almost always choose a blank card. I get them from galleries and museums because those are the sorts of images I like, and know my friends and family will like. The care and thought is the same whether I have written Happy Birthday myself, or it was printed for me. Most birthday cards are naff, with vom-inducing sentiments or cheesy jokes, neither of which would be appreciated by the people I send to. Sending cards is increasingly rare now, and I just think it’s nice to receive a message in any form which shows someone is thinking of me.

I buy absolutely gorgeous blank cards to use as birthday cards all the time.