30th, 40th, 50th, 90th
The birthdays where people fly in and give speeches. Get the speeches on the card and they exist next year too.
Birthdays
A birthday card that plays.
Collect a minute from everyone who loves them — the friend abroad, the grandparent who cannot travel, the sister who will cry — and put the lot on one card. They hold a phone to it and watch the whole thing. It costs $24 and it outlasts every other present in the room.
Ships in 24 hours · Change the video every year · No app for them to install
The idea
Everyone already films the message. Nobody keeps it.
Birthday videos arrive in a group chat, get watched once, and are gone by the following week — buried under photographs of somebody’s lunch. The effort forty people went to lasts about four hours.
Put it on a card and it stops being a message and becomes an object. It sits on a desk with their face printed on it, and every time they pick it up the whole thing plays again. Same clips, entirely different gift.
And because the card holds an address rather than the video, you can re-point it next year. Which is how a $24 card for a seven-year-old quietly becomes the thing they still have at twenty.
How to do it well
Three steps, one evening.
- 01
Ask for sixty seconds each
Give people a prompt rather than a blank request — “tell the story about the camping trip” gets a real answer, “say something nice” gets a wave. Ask them to film landscape.
- 02
Stitch them together
The editor already on your phone will do it. Aim for three to five minutes total — long enough to be moving, short enough that they watch it to the end at the table.
- 03
Print the card and hand it over
A photograph of them on the front, “Happy 30th” and their name. Do not explain what it is — let them tap it and find out. That reaction is the actual present.
Good for
Not only birthdays, in practice.
One card, re-pointed every year
A new film each birthday on the same card. It becomes a record of them growing up that nobody had to remember to keep.
The people who could not come
A grandparent who cannot travel gets to be in the room, on the table, in front of everyone — which is not the same as a phone call.
Everybody chips in
Ten cards come to $18 each, so a group can take one apiece pointing at the same film — or a family can do one per grandchild.
Prices
One card, or one each.
| Cards | Each | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $24.00 | $29.00 |
| 10 | $18.00 | $180.00shipping free |
| 25 | $16.00 Popular | $400.00shipping free |
| 50 | $14.00 | $700.00shipping free |
| 100 | $12.00 | $1,200.00shipping free |
| 150 | $11.00 Best value | $1,650.00shipping free |
Set quantities, so pick the one above your headcount. Free shipping over $50. A printed back — a message, or instructions for the recipient — is $1 to $3 a card more.
Questions
What people ask
How much is one card?
$24 for a single card, including the page that holds the video and every future change to it. Ten cards work out at $18 each if a group is going in together, or if you want one for each grandchild.
Can I change the video every year?
Yes, and it is the best thing about it. Give a child a card on their fifth birthday and re-point it every year after — same card, a new film each time. By the time they are eighteen it is the only birthday present they still have.
How do I get everyone's messages onto one card?
Ask people to film sixty seconds on their phone and send it to you, then edit the clips together into one video — the built-in editor on any phone does this in about twenty minutes. Point the card at that. If editing is not your thing, email hello@itsdote.com and we will help.
Can I use a video that is already on YouTube?
Paste the link instead of uploading. It plays right on your card page with no ads and no recommended videos afterwards, which matters when the next thing on screen would otherwise be a stranger.
Their birthday is in three days.
Then you are fine. Cards are shipped within 24 hours, so this is one of the few personalized gifts that does not need two weeks of notice.
Can I keep it private?
Yes — put a password on it and only the person you give it to can watch. Worth doing if the video has children in it, or if forty of their friends are about to be filmed saying things at a party.
Does it need an app?
No. They hold their phone near the card and the video opens in the browser they already use. No account, nothing to install, nothing to explain.
What should the front look like?
One good photograph of them and a short line — "Happy 30th" and their name is plenty. The Big type layout is built for exactly that.
Their birthday is closer than you think.
Design a card in four minutes and it is shipped within 24 hours.
Make a birthday card — from $24Ships in 24 hours · Free shipping over $50 · Change the video any time