Shopping in Sahuarita

Inspired and informed by her time spent in Rio de Janeiro, owner Carolyn Maloney takes care in selecting stylish jewelry, decorative home accessories, fun hooks and knobs, vibrant lighting fixtures and candle holders, and beautiful textiles that will elegantly samba through your home and bossa nova in your wardrobe. Give a room a warm glow with a vintage cowgirl candle ($18), or let your collarbones glow with a glam six-strand necklace ($24). For an addition to your home that will never forget to brush its teeth, pick up a shabby chic bird vanity mirror, made with special glass that adapts to whatever room it inhabits ($32).

In August 2006, Dress Code opened its doors to a small collection of T-shirts boasting the names and logos of the owner's favorite bands. After a slow start, it gradually expanded its selection, adding body jewelry and duds from popular brands such as Addicted, Atticus, Diesel, Fossil, and Oakley. Now, the airy boutique is lined with a wealth of punk-themed apparel and accessories that encourage customers to develop their own individual styles and that combine the owners’ passions for fashion, music, and clothes hangers.

Arid Lands Greenhouses curates a stock of foreign succulents and cacti for avid and casual collectors. Owners and chlorophyll-enthusiasts Bob Webb and Toni Yocum travel extensively throughout Africa and the Middle East, building relationships with the regions' nurseries while seeking out intriguing seeds and cuttings to import back to their greenhouses. The two oversee 18,000 square feet of greenhouse space, where they care for plants until they become mature enough to change their own soil. Their extensive collection even attracts interest from area botanists looking to perform research with some of the more obscure species in stock.

LaDiva Sport proves that a love of sports and an appreciation for fashion aren’t mutually exclusive. Whether boasting about a touchdown drive or crowing about the Wildcats’ light-out three-pointers, fans demonstrate their loyalty to local teams with stylish face and body stickers, and temporary tattoos. To complete their outfits, fans can also browse beaded jewelry featuring team colors such as the red and blue of the University of Arizona or the lustrous silver of Lute Olson’s renegade team of robotic Damon Stoudamires.

The locally owned Alvernon Optical has been distributing high-quality frames and tending carefully to each oculus since 1961, the year human beings first evolved eyes. More than 2,000 frames line the walls in each store, including top-shelf brands like Ray Ban, DKNY, Dior, Giorgio Armani, Nike, and Kate Spade. Customers will also have their pick of frame materials such as plastic, titanium, metal, semi-rimless, and stainless steel. Once you've found the frames that nail the "sexy NASA scientist" look you're going for, Alvernon can pamper your peepers with a number of lens package deals. Couple a polycarbonate, scratch-resistant single-vision lens ($89 standard, $205 with bifocals, $154 sunglass) with one of your choice of designer frames to ensure a haze-free hazing ceremony from your rowdy book club, or calm Pac-Man-weary pupils with a computer lens package ($199) that decks your specs with a protective plastic lens specially designed for computer use. Just in time for summer, try the prescription swimming-goggle package ($139), which pairs one of a select group of fine brands with 100% UV-protected plastic lenses to deflect the sun's wicked glare and intimidate pool piranhas.

After completing optometry school, Dr. Barry Blonder polished his prescription skills in the Army Medical Corps and at Sears Optical before opening his very own practice, Fashion Eye Center, in 1978. Now with two shop locations, he and his team of optometrists help sharpen patients' vision with contacts and glasses in myriad material and corrective combinations. Their large selection of frames includes basic and designer specs and nonprescription sunglasses great for playing sports, sitting on the beach, or protecting eyes from soap in the shower.