Lucy Heavens was Lucy Harris before she married her boyfriend Rhodri Evans and decided it would make perfect sense to combine their surnames.

So I was half-expecting to meet an earth mother type surrounded by tarot cards and joss-sticks when I visited her home in Freshfield Road, Brighton.

Instead I found an attractive, normal-looking mum simultaneously trying to make me a cup of tea, cradle her five-week-old baby son and berate a noisy terrier.

It turns out the whole name thing was only a bit of fun but perhaps and this might be stretching things a little bit it also says something about Lucy's outlook on life and business.

The 34-year-old is the founder and managing director of Juicy Lucy, the Brighton-based gift card business which prides itself on being a little bit silly, a little bit cute and very girlie.

Lucy is also a highly-skilled artist, responsible for all of the designs which decorate the cards, mugs, fridge-magnets and journals which now carry the company signature.

Two years ago the business was being run out of boxes on various kitchen tables.

Now it has moved into plush new offices at Brighton Marina and employs five staff.

Lucy said: "Our philosophy was to create somewhere that was a fun place to be, because, otherwise, what is the point of going to work every day.

"I know all the girls who work for us have a great time. "We stupidly chose a cream carpet so they all walk around in slippers, which gives the place a very relaxed atmosphere."

She talks in the plural because her husband Rhodri, 33, is the company's operations director and is steering the ship while Lucy is on maternity leave.

Lucy said: "He has a brilliant business brain and looks after the staff and all the things that need to be done while I am at home looking after Roan and designing."

The concept behind Juicy Lucy is a factory where a trio of fairies called Love, Inspiration and Laughter toil away to make "lovely things that spread a little happiness". It was meant to appeal to our softer, dafter nature and seems to have worked.

In November 2003 sales turnover was £7,600. In the same month last year, company sales hit £57,600.

One of the company's biggest sellers is a small plastic box, the size of a business card, which contains 14 "magic messages" to give to your loved one.

The idea is to give them surreptitiously, by hiding them in pockets, posting them with parcels, sticking them on fridges or placing them under pillows.

They say things like "I love you more than football and beer" and have gone down a storm.

During the Christmas rush 24,000 boxes were bought at tills across the UK.

Lucy also loves creative writing and is working on several children's books, which she is hoping to publish under the Juicy Lucy banner in the near future.

Juicy Lucy is not Lucy's only stab at business.

When she was 26, she gave up a career as a primary school teacher to launch The Lighthouse Learning Centre in Brighton.

The idea was to give children a more holistic education "a little bit of history, a little bit of yoga"

which would be centred on what they wanted to learn rather than any curriculum.

She said: "To say I was unhappy working in state education was an understatement. I felt very restricted in what I could teach and how I wanted to approach teaching."

Lighthouse was successful for a couple of years, largely with parents who were teaching their children from home, but financial pressures ended the venture in 2000.

But the collapse of the business did not deter Lucy. Partly, she says, because of the inspiration she drew from attending a Landmark Forum in 1997.

Landmark is an international organisation which claims to be about self-improvement.

It has been accused of exploiting the gullible and described as a cult. Others, like Lucy, believe it has transformed their lives.

She said: "Landmark was one of the key factors behind the success of Juicy Lucy.

"It taught me is was possible to chase dreams and not be fearful of the consequences. And that is how we run Juicy Lucy.

"We treat it as a big game. A game we play very hard but one which we are not afraid to lose. Its about overcoming the fear factor.

"We have set ourselves huge sales targets, which we are determined to reach but we know if we fail it is not the end of the world.

And that's key.

"The fear of failure prompts so many people to sabotage their own dreams, that's something I feel very strongly about."

None of this sounds particularly wacky or far-fetched, only a clearheaded assessment of the human condition.

Neither does Lucy strike me as being the gullible type. When Lighthouse was wound up Lucy and Rhodri another exteacher, the pair met when Rhodri was observing one of Lucy's lessons at a school in North London decided to travel the world.

Meanwhile, Juicy Lucy which had been launched at the same time as Lighthouse but relegated to a side-project was slowly starting to grow as orders picked up.

It was being administered by a friend, Becky Simmons, who was effectively running the business from her home near Lewes and is now the company's production manager.

When Lucy and Rhodri returned it was "full steam ahead" with Juicy Lucy.

In 2002, they employed a business adviser, Matthew Stone, to help them instil some much-needed professionalism into the company.

After the Landmark forum this was the best thing to happen to the business, according to Lucy.

"Matthew has been a wizard, not just in terms of the number-crunching and going over the books but in terms of drawing out our potential and making us feel happy about what we are doing."

Whether you're talking about staff management or the customers, it seems spreading a little happiness is what Juicy Lucy is all about.

It's not a bad business model.