Three years ago, Jill Josephson lost her job at The Gillette Co.

Her position, the project manager of promotional displays and packaging, was being moved to Cincinnati, and she didn't want to leave her home in Gloucester — or her lobster boat.

"There's no lobster out in Ohio country," she said.

So she decided to use her degree and experience in graphic design to come up an idea for her own business. That transformed into Gloucester Oneseas (pronounced "onesies," like the baby attire), her own line of adult and children's clothing and jewelry inspired by the sea. She's already sold more than 3,000 shirts in less than two years.

Josephson started the project after 16 years making posters and souvenir shirts for the Annisquam Village Seafair, and that translated into a business opportunity.

"I just thought, 'Well gee, maybe I can do something with these Seafair designs," she said. "At first I wasn't sure if they would fly, but everyone seems to like them."

This year's Annisquam Village Seafair is tomorrow, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Josephson said it usually draws about 1,000 people each year. She said it's always a fun event because people come out from all over, whether it's local residents or summer tourists visiting the coast for a day.

She uses the fair as an opportunity to sell her products. She said she can often sell 500 shirts in just over two hours.

"I'd love to see this be the new 'Life is Good,' but that's huge," she said of the popular clothing line with stick figures that started in Boston in 1989.

Her adult T-shirts and baby 'onesies' share the "Life is Good" style: simple and clean. Each item of clothing has a solid color animal design with one or two words written beneath that form a play on words.

There's the orange crab that says "crabby," or the blue whale with "wailer" printed below it. There's a purple octopus with "squirmy" and a royal merman with "King Naptune." Her shirt for the 2009 festival has a hermit crab with "shy" written underneath.

Each logo has its own following, but Josephson said the blue striper fish that says "keeper" is always her best-seller for kids, and the gray clam with "happy" written below it is emerging as an adult favorite.

"The 'Keeper' shirt is always the most popular," she said. "Everyone thinks their kid is a keeper. And all the adults want to be as happy as a clam."

Josephson manages the business out of her own living room, with only her tail-less cat as a partner. She believes strongly about saving the environment and sends part of her proceeds to the Ocean Project, which educates and spreads awareness to the public about ocean conservation.

Josephson, however, likes to think she bucks the "Go Green" trend in favor a new one: "Go Blue."

"I walk the beaches and see trash everywhere, and while it has washed ashore, there is still so much left in the ocean," she writes on her Web site, www.gloucesteroneseas.com.

"Kids love the sea. They love sea animals," she said. "If they learn that conservation affects the well-being of these creatures, they will grow up to be responsible in taking care of the environment they live in."

Josephson buys organic shirts and has them screen-printed at Mantis Graphics in East Hampton, which uses soy inks. Her designs can be ordered online or found at 12 stores across the state, including six different locations in Gloucester.

"The 'onesies' are great; people love them," said Annika Phenix, owner of Pisces, a gift store on Main Street in Gloucester that sells both Josephson's adult and children's clothing. "They're unique, they're local. We don't have a lot of local stuff so we're glad to have them."

Josephson said she's looking forward to seeing her business go even further, but she's not sure she wants to expand too far. She said she's grown accustomed to the flexibility and independence of working from home.

"With the job market the way it is, I've gotten really comfortable and I don't know if I could go back into the corporate world again," she said. "You've got freedom, but you also have the responsibility of taking care of your customers."

Cameron Kittle can be reached at gt_reporter@gloucestertimes.com

If you go

What: Annisquam Village Seafair.

When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where: Activities at the Village Center, School Yard and Village Hall on Leonard Street.