Shopping in Clawson

The quaint, mother-and-daughter-owned Royal Oak knitterie offers an eclectic selection of knitting, spinning, and crocheting tools for everyone from the novice knitter to the experienced threadmistress. A wide array of fibers, from Merino silk ($25) to dyed wool ($30), are offered for any of your sock- or shawl-making needs, alongside popular needles such as the Addi Turbo circles needles ($13.50+) and the Lantern Moon silk-needles case ($30+), handmade by women in Vietnam. The house of knits also boasts a friendly and knowledgeable staff that is ready to assist you in finding the right fiber for your knitting needs and to help new and experienced knitters navigate the yarnerie.

The jewelry designers at Heartwear Designs have been at it since 1971. Since that time, the talented local artists have been stringing and molding hundreds of idiosyncratic accessories from gold, platinum, and gemstones. The work has been sold to national retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Fortunoff, but now Heartwear Designs showcases the distinctive work.

Heartwear Designs jewelry includes earrings, pendants,rings, and bracelets,,available in 14-karat gold, 18-karat gold, or platinum, as well as yellow, white, rose, or green gold. Custom engagement rings and birthstone pieces, along with fashion jewelry from sterling, pearls, and gemstone beads round out the entire inventory. Heartwear Designs also offers repairs for customers' broken jewelry, restringing pearls and beads, and they polish up guests’ tarnished pieces for free.

English Gardens began as a single, family-owned nursery in 1954, and has since blossomed into a full-service landscaping and garden center with multiple locations, all owned and operated by second-generation family members. Each location facilitates both indoor and outdoor gardening projects with a large selection of gardening tools, seed packets, and transplant-ready plants extracted from their original soil by renowned surgeons. Garden accents such as bird feeders, patio furnishings, and lounge chairs dress up outside spaces with comfort and design, and the florist department brings the outdoor flourish inside by arranging fresh-cut floral bouquets and gift baskets for all manner of occasions. Workshops and in-store presentations also allow the green-thumbed experts to impart advice on common gardening and decorating topics such as building a kitchen herb garden or housetraining a dogwood tree.

Every year at Ann Arbor Fest, Catching Fireflies founders Steve and April paused from manning their paper-arts booth to admire the folksy paintings of local artist Chris Roberts-Antieau. When they finally saved up enough to purchase their favorite piece, “Catching Fireflies,” it led to a flash of inspiration: a shop dedicated to showcasing similarly whimsical artwork and supporting local artists.

Now, Catching Fireflies’ inventory spans the spectrum, from leather-bound journals and wall art to children’s toys, and has been lauded in Rochester-Rochester Hills Patch. Once customers have honed in on wares, staff can gift-wrap them free of charge, thereby eliminating the need to conceal them behind Groucho glasses.

Modern Skate & Surf’s alternative-sports shop was founded in 1979 and has since hosted events frequented by Olympic and professional athletes—including superstar Tony Hawk—as well as earned a feature as Best Snowboard Shop in 2012 from Real Detroit Weekly. In Modern Skate Park's world-class, 60,000-square-foot Royal Oak skate park—one of the largest facilities of its kind in the US—skateboards grind across rails or glide over jumps, and inline skaters whiz over obstacles and BMX bikes hang in midair. Customers can build on their extreme-sports skills in clinics and lessons or rent out the facility for parties or high-speed chases. Committed to supporting the next generation of extreme athletes, Modern Skate Park offers discounts to students who bring in report cards sporting A’s and B’s.

In addition to the skate park, Modern Skate & Surf also maintains a East Lansing store that stocks snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding, skating, and protective gear to facilitate exciting adventures.

Look + See's eyewear studio is as swanky as any art gallery, with pale-green walls lined with mirrors and sculpture-esq wooden shelves displaying glasses. Their stock of fashionable frames from around the world was smelted in the factories of top designers. Frames from OGI run between $100-$269, Vera Wang rims cost $150-$280, and Gotti’s chic eyeball offsetters are $315-$558.