Shopping in Fernway

A party just isn't a party until someone recites "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in a top hat shaped like a beer mug. With today's hard-partying Groupon, $15 gets you get $30 worth of party supplies and Pittsburgh-themed merchandise at the legendary Mike Feinberg Company in the heart of the Strip District.

Franklin Nursery is a family-owned and family-operated full-service garden center and gift shop that's been serving steaming platefuls of verdant life since 1973. The nursery specializes in shade, evergreen, and ornamental trees, all of which are grown locally on the owner's farm. In addition to dendrite-based life, choose from a wide selection of decorative shrubs (starting at $25), perennials ($10–$25), roses ($20–$30), and more. Summon talking squirrels to your garden with ceramic Witchety Woodland Tinkling Toadstools ($6–$18), decorative dollops of whimsy from Kinsman Garden Company. For the discerning, biodegradable gardener, choose from a selection of FoxFarm organic soils and fertilizers.

Typhoon Lighting especially specializes in everything light related: repair services, refurbished antique lighting fixtures, and classic and contemporary new designs to lustrously illuminate any roost. The company's domestic fixtures include pendants, chandeliers, sconces, and lamps that, when nicely light-bulbed, scare ghosts and shed light on ping-pong balls' hidden hideaways (prices vary, depending on limited items and specialty lines). Luxurious lampshades are available to enhance any immodest bare bulb ($30 to $50 on average). The radiant retailer also stocks a wide selection of accessories, including finials and hard-to-find antique bulbs (average $50–$200). If you already have an item that needs fixing or you would like to have a unit customized or embellished with a handmade lampshade, Typhoon's friendly, experienced staff is also eager to lend a hand ($70/hour). All repair and fabrication services are done in-house by highly skilled craftspeople, ensuring special attention and glowing service.

The Book Cellar escapes the curse afflicting many book fairs of being littered with endless copies of Dianetics and Windows 95 for Dummies through support from vivacious readers whose donations have created an intriguingly eclectic selection of literary milestones, pulp-fiction treats, and fascinating non-fiction. With the store's pleasant pricing, your $10 voucher could have you walking home with shelves' worth of material. Kindle and iPad owners can pick up analog copies of their digital favorites, since coverless tablets offer no way to broadcast to your coworkers that you're reading Nabokov.

Phantom Fireworks first burst onto the scene more than three decades ago. Today, the company lights up backyards of America from coast-to-coast with more than 1,200 locations.

Much like its products, Phantom’s employees frequently take to the skies. They travel around the globe in search of the industry's latest ground and aerial displays before returning home with rockets, missiles, fountains, and aerial repeaters. From there, an extensive in-house testing program takes over, checking each item's safety before it’s sold to the public.

That testing program is just one of Phantom’s pillars of safety. The company also holds memberships with multiple pyrotechnics organizations, and it offers customers additional information about fireworks laws and history through its Fireworks University.

After working at eyewear centers for three years, a 21-year-old Norman Childs took a tremendous leap of faith when he opened his own in 1979. In the inaugural years, Norman developed close relationships with his customers and began building Eyetique’s reputation for carrying high-fashion frames by the likes of Oliver Peoples, Prada, and Chanel––brand names that were hard to find in the area. Norman’s brainchild grew even larger with the help of a massive ad campaign showing more than 600 actors, musicians, and local celebrities donning the shop’s eyewear. With an entrepreneurial spirit that never yields, Norman also developed his own brand of eyeglasses, the Norman Childs line, which features frames made in the USA.

Today, Eyetique has since expanded to eight locations and continues to outfit visitors in sunglasses and prescription eyeglasses, which empower wearers with 20/20 vision and the ability to always spot Waldo in games of hide-and-seek. Staff members work one-on-one with customers to ensure that frames reflect the their personality, helping guests choose from a variety of designer brands including Coach, Gucci, Ray-Ban, and Silhouette.