Here’s her cards: Dr. Phillips teen spreads cheer with handmade cards

Dr. Phillips’ Lacye Bryant saw a post on a community Facebook group in April from a mother asking if people would send cards to her son who was graduating from kindergarten. 

The graduation had been canceled, and the mother wanted her son to feel special for his accomplishment. 

When Bryant told her 14-year-old daughter, Arianna Bryant, about the situation, Arianna jumped at the opportunity to bring joy to another child. 

She made the card that night. 

“It was very exciting to be able to cheer up someone any way I can,” Arianna said. “It was very fulfilling. It’s definitely nice knowing you are able to bring someone a little joy.”

The Bryants took the time to learn more about what the boy likes so she could personalize the card. His love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the inspiration for the card. She drew one of the heads of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo in each corner of the card and colored in bubble letters for “kindergarten graduate.” 

After he received the card, the boy sent Arianna a video thanking her for the small gift. 

That was the moment Arianna knew she wanted to make more cards for free to send to anyone who wanted one simply with the goal of spreading kindness. 

Photo by Liz Ramos

“Her heart is pure gold”

Lacye Bryant said her daughter always has been able to find the beauty in everything — despite having an atypical childhood. 

Lacye Bryant said she and Arianna left Arianna’s birth father when Arianna was 5 years old. They went to Harbor House, and both were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. 

The mother-daughter duo lived in hotels for the first few years after Lacye Bryant separated from her husband because she wasn’t financially stable. 

“We’re out of it now, thank God, but she had a rough (childhood),” Lacye Bryant said. “I would expect her to be a troubled teen. She did not have a typical childhood. It wasn’t great, but I did the best I could, and I always tried to make little things special. I think maybe that instilled something in her to make, like, birthdays, even if I couldn’t do something big, I would make the day special.”

Since then, Lacye Bryant has remarried and the family of five has found ways to celebrate each other, even when they didn’t have a ton of money. 

Arianna loves thrifting and “finding the beauty in old treasures,” Lacye Bryant said, such as a snow globe missing the glass globe but still plays music. Arianna brings out the snow globe every holiday season.  

When it was just Arianna and Lacye Bryant on their own in those years, Lacye Bryant said she would have appreciated receiving a card from anyone.

“When you’re going through stuff, people will always say things, it’ll be words of encouragement, but you never have anything to physically hold on to and look at,” Lacye Bryant said. “I feel like there is a difference whenever you have something you can hold on to and look at than just someone saying it.”

Seeing her daughter’s ambition to send cards to strangers across the country out of the kindness of Arianna’s heart makes Lacye Bryant feel like she’s done something right in her life, she said. 

“I know her heart is pure gold,” Lacye Bryant said of her daughter. “She’s not your average teenager. She’s so beyond that when it comes to thinking and thinking about others and caring for people.”

Photo by Liz Ramos

Created with kindness

With a passion for art, Arianna started making handmade cards for her parents and brothers at 8 years old, personalizing them to their likes and interests. 

For every occasion — birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and more — she would take her time, sketching her design by hand until it was perfect to her. Then she would go over the design in black pen and start coloring it. 

Her favorite card she’s ever made was for this past Mother’s Day. She put human eyes on an apple and hamster to look like the memes she saw on TikTok that were weird to Lacye Bryant. 

As soon as Lacye Bryant opened the card on Mother’s Day, she laughed seeing the weird eyes, knowing her daughter knew it would make her feel comfortable. 

“It’s my favorite, because it definitely screams Arianna did this for sure,” Lacye Bryant said. “With our family cards, it’s just kind of a fun little thing, there’s always something slightly off.”

It might be a spelling or grammatical error in the message or the card opening the opposite direction, Arianna’s parents always enjoy looking to see if anything is off on the card. It’s a unique and special moment if they do find something because they know the card was made with love. 

“She wasn’t overthinking it; it was just from the heart,” Lacye Bryant said.

When it comes to cards for people outside the family, Arianna doesn’t settle for anything less than perfect. 

Although Lacye Bryant said it doesn’t occur as much anymore, she used to hear Arianna crumble card after card, not pleased with how it’s coming out. 

The more cards Arianna has made, the more confidence she has gained, Lacye Bryant said. 

“You obviously want your kids to go through life with confidence; you want them to walk through with their heads held high,” Lacye Bryant said. “I’ve known she’s artistic forever, but seeing her finally start to slowly get more into it and noticing it herself, as a parent, I’m proud of her.”

Arianna has come a long way in her designs, recalling the first card she ever handmade was for Mother’s Day, and the design entailed flowers and a stick figure. 

Her most difficult card was recreating the Pittsburgh Steelers helmet for a grandfather. 

Arianna’s cards have been across the country. 

A woman in Ohio who couldn’t afford to give her daughter a gift for her graduation cried seeing the finished card Arianna created and sent her saying, “Happy graduation, sweet girl” and decorated with flowers and stars. Arianna also made a bracelet with pastel colors for the daughter.

Another card featured a coconut with sakura flowers and another had a little tiger shark and flowers. The cards were sent to Hawaii for a couple who had experienced an earthquake. She left a message encouraging their resilience. 

“It’s very nice to be able to reach out to someone that far away and them want a card from me even though they don’t even know me,” Arianna said. 

Arianna’s kindness has come back to her because two women have sent her card-making and scrapbooking supplies, giving her an opportunity to expand her artistic abilities and create more intricate cards. 

Now Arianna and Lacye Bryant have another way to bond: scrapbooking. Arianna is encouraging her mother to embrace her creative side through scrapbooking. 

Arianna’s looking forward to sending more cards of various types, and she’s starting with 120 cards that will be sent to a nursing home in MetroWest. She will include poems or nice notes as well as a word search to give them an activity.

“My grandmother was in a nursing home, and I wish someone would have sent her a card when she wasn’t feeling good or when she really needed one,” Arianna said. “There’s always someone that needs it, even if you don’t know the person. You always try and help any way you can, and to be able to do that is very nice. I’ve always wanted to help people, anybody I can.”