In the age of technology, when text messages quickly replace handwritten letters, there are still people who diligently use a pen to create cards filled with emotions.
Every day, Nguyen Mai Thuy Tien goes to a small, peaceful corner of the yard to handwrite greeting cards for guests - Photo: NS
Writing handwritten cards is not only a job but also an art of preserving sincere feelings.
Ink strokes convey a thousand words of love
Nguyen Mai Thuy Tien (25 years old, living in Binh Thanh district) has been writing greeting cards for two years. The reason that brought Tien to this job simply came from her passion for practicing handwriting. "I have a very long process of practicing handwriting, starting right from the first grade.
"Because my father is a teacher, he often pays attention to his daughter's handwriting. I have maintained the habit of practicing handwriting until now," Tien shared. She often uses her free time every day to practice handwriting, sometimes writing people's names, sometimes writing paragraphs or poems.
This handwriting requires a lot of time, patience and concentration. Although she has never attended any calligraphy course, Tien's handwriting is as beautiful as printed letters. She also has not attended any design course but still has a very good ability to think about card design.
"I think anyone who works on beauty like this has a good aesthetic perspective," Tien shared.
Her workday is quite flexible depending on the number of orders. Mainly, she writes ready-made cards sent by customers, according to the content and list of customers' requests. In addition to wedding invitations, Tien writes holiday greeting cards, personal cards or cards for businesses to send to customers.
If there are many customers and they are urgent, she can sit at the table from 9am to 8pm every day, sometimes writing cards without resting, her hands numb.
However, the result is extremely worthy with more than 500 cards created. "When writing, I often update the image for customers so that they can be assured of how the card will look when written, to see if the customer is satisfied, and if any edits are needed?", Tien said.
During the wedding season at the beginning of the year, the number of orders skyrocketed. There were days when she had to write more than 500 invitations to ensure that orders were delivered on time. Usually, orders ranged from 100 to 500 invitations.
"Because of my passion, I accept to write at a very reasonable price. Many customers who receive the cards recommend me to their friends because they don't think I can write at such a reasonable price. I'm also happy because I can satisfy my passion for writing and earn extra money at the same time, so I don't care too much about money," Tien said.
She remembers a time when a customer texted her at 2pm and needed a card by 5pm. With 400 cards, both the cover and the inside, she happily accepted because she had been a regular customer of Tien's for a long time and really wanted her to write the card by hand. "I was able to handle it by trying to concentrate all my energy to ensure the bus to the province was on time. The customer received the card and praised it, and I was also proud of my achievement that day," Tien boasted.
Having written greeting cards for two years now, she has noticed differences in the colors and ink strokes of the cards between regions. "Guests from Ha Tinh or Nghe An usually do not write their names in red ink. That is something quite new that I have learned," Tien shared her experience.
She often posts videos sharing her work on her personal TikTok and Facebook pages to find customers. Many people have left compliments as a great source of motivation for Tien to continue her work.
"Sometimes those words of encouragement make me believe more in the artistic value of handwriting that will not be lost in the age of artificial intelligence. We can still preserve the beauty of traditional invitations in the era of online invitations that are developing like today," Tien laughed.
Beautiful handwriting containing sincere feelings that Thien sends to his customers - Photo: NGOC SANG
When each word touches the emotion
Similarly, Tien Ngoc Thien (born in 1996, living in Binh Tan district) has also started this handwriting job to earn money for more than two years now. Thien has researched and learned to create a fanpage and set up a TikTok channel to find customers.
"Luckily, the clip I posted was trending, and I received many orders to write wedding and birthday invitations... I was very happy and bought pre-made invitation templates to send to customers to choose from and will write according to the content requested by the customers," she shared.
Her work starts when she wakes up. "I check messages and consult customers on TikTok, then on the fanpage, then on Zalo messages and finally on my personal Facebook page." She usually tries to write orders at whatever time she has an order, except when she is busy writing other orders.
Thien will write about 150 characters or less on the card, and longer content will be handwritten. She will only decorate if the customer requests additional decoration.
When her hands get tired, Thien takes a break and during that time she checks for new customers' messages. While writing, Thien also often records videos and takes pictures of the cards she is rewriting to make videos to post to find new customers.
Thien said that customers pay a lot of attention to form, they want to send friends and relatives invitations on which the guests' names are written neatly and neatly.
"This profession not only requires beautiful handwriting but also creativity and sophistication in choosing fonts, ink colors, and decorative patterns. Each customer has their own preferences, some like a minimalist style, some want elaborate designs with many motifs, so I always have to update new trends," Thien confided.
She researched and learned from experience through writing invitations for guests. She instructed guests on how to make a list to easily check and control the number of guests. After finishing writing, she carefully checked the names, arranged them in numerical order and divided them into groups so that when they left, they would not have to waste time looking for invitations and dividing them up to invite.
"Almost everyone I send cards to compliments them and asks who wrote it so beautifully, or how the ink and card colors match so well," she excitedly shared.
Thien remembers that once a guest in Bien Hoa, Dong Nai province booked a car to come to her house to write wedding invitations for her daughter. Because her daughter was abroad, she had to take care of everything from A to Z for her daughter's wedding while also taking care of her sick husband. Therefore, she was so busy that she could not remember all the names of the guests at once and make a list for Thien.
So she invited Thien to her house to write the invitation. "I never thought that one day I would have a customer come to my house to pick me up and write the invitation. She treated me like family and invited me to her wedding. Even now, she still texts me from time to time to ask how I am," Thien emotionally shared.
Thien is also learning many new fonts so that customers have more choices. And she always believes that no matter how much things develop, the handmade values created by humans always have deep, lasting beauty...
In addition to writing wedding invitations and gift cards, there are many other handmade services such as writing Crabit notebooks. Many young people draw notebooks with a variety of images, eye-catching colors, cut and paste them into photo frames, write artistic words for customers to easily choose to make diaries, color or to take notes, write schedules...
There are many different sizes of notebooks from A5 to square or mini size versions, prices range from 50,000 to 200,000 VND depending on the size, thickness, drawings, colors, and writing in the notebook.
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Appearing cheerfully in a clip longer than a minute, Nhan Kha Ai (29 years old, living in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City) in jeans and a striped T-shirt, chirped like a little bird: "Hello everyone, today we will try on, try on G's clothes".
>> Next time: Let's try on clothes
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/kiem-tien-bang-nghe-doc-la-ky-4-viet-thiep-tay-nghe-thu-cong-kiem-tien-thoi-hien-dai-20250309095524197.htm
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