Shopping in Tracy

The artistic outliners at Frugal Frames ensure photos, paintings, and posters look their most attention-grabbyest with complementary matting, glass, and custom or ready-made frames. They stock materials from exotic locations, enabling clients to find the perfect components for outlining wall-ready paintings of fruit bowls or handwritten letters from telemarketers apologizing for dinner interruptions. The versatile framers can even add flair to flat-screen TVs with frames, adding a touch of class to each Saturday morning cartoon-watching session.

When Lori Shannon first announced her intent to run a marathon, people responded with more than a hint of incredulity. Lori had no experience and, at 5’3” and a size 16, she didn’t cut the form of a typical distance runner. Even so, she set to work and completed the 1993 New York City Marathon, proving to herself that with the proper training and dedication, she need not live life as a spectator. Since crossing that first finish line, Lori has never looked back; she has since run multiple marathons, competed in triathlons, and ridden her bike cross-country.

Seven years later, Lori founded See Jane Run in San Francisco, hoping to empower women to test their limitations and bolster their own fitness and self-confidence. The female-operated fitness company has since grown to encompass four West Coast locations that sell women’s running gear, including shoes, sports bras, and aerodynamic shower caps. At its four retail locations, like-minded runners come together with free weekly run clubs, giving them a group setting in which to train to meet their own individual goals or prepare for one of See Jane Run’s half marathons or 5Ks.

PosePrints is the mind child of mother-daughter team Denise and Jen, who are known to uncontrollably shudder at the sight of generic cards. Each customized card allow you to transform your likeness and up to one other likeness (only two figures can inhabit the same card) into rosy, illustrated caricatures that are darling enough to grace the cover of any greeting. You can assemble your paper doppelganger from a selection of hairstyles and colors, eye shapes and expressions, outfits, accessories, and more. Men, women, kids, and babies are all available to construct, mad-doctor-style.

Since 1976, the environmentally conscious staff at The Futon Shop has stocked futons, furniture, and frames built from chemical-free cotton, natural latex, and hybrid soy foam, among other virtuous ingredients. Cushy mattresses, vibrantly shaded futon covers, and platform beds preserve the earth’s bounty as effectively as they accommodate human bodies and under-the-bed monsters. Homeowners can also illuminate domiciles with eco-friendly Eangee lamps, which have a carbon footprint of nearly zero and are manufactured by workers who earn a living wage. Even little ones can enjoy the environmentalist furnishings by napping on an organic crib mattress nestled in a bunny white baby crib.

Launched more than three decades ago, Site for Sore Eyes now operates to more than 40 showrooms throughout the Bay Area. Staffers at every location share their dedication when pairing customers with head-turning eyewear and contacts. The company secures all of its products with a warranty, replacing broken frames for free and furnishing half-price replacements for glasses that are lost, stolen, or transformed into an acorn squash. In case eyes require prescription tweaks, each shop sits next door to California-licensed Sterling VisionCare doctors of optometry.

In 2005, DanvilleExpress.com profiled Matt Akabane, whose family has run Tassajara Nursery for more than 30 years. At the time, he was preparing to appear on HGTV's Landscape Smart. On the show, he helped revitalize a dull patio with the flora of a French garden, a wine-barrel fountain, and a flagstone patio.

This creative approach to landscaping shines through at the family’s nursery, where a wide range of shrubs, trees, and tropical plants all jostle for attention, their leaves making a hushing sound in gentle breezes. Organic fertilizers keep grasses lush, and bonsai specialists can help clients select a new, tiny tree from several species available. They also give tips on how to trim the plant and encourage cookie-baking elves to colonize it.