Twice yearly I get to visit Frankenmuth, Michigan with a friend. We spend one day shopping at Birch Run Outlets, stay the night, and spend another day shopping and eating in Frankenmuth.

Zhender's gives a free family style chicken dinner during your birthday month. That's something we really enjoy.

An then we visit Bead Haven.

Bead Haven is a wonderful bead shop that carries everything. So much eye candy! There are metal elements, clasps, fire polished beads in all sizes, colors, shapes...there are seed beads in all sizes and colors, Swarovski crystal, gemstones, beading fibers, tools, books, and so much more that I can't even name. Then there's the big bead bowl. After I have picked out all the yummy stuff I want, we sit down at the big bead bowl and sift through to see what we can find. This time I was looking for tear drops, cubes, hearts, and larger unusual shapes for pendants.

I finally treated myself to some rivolis that I plan to bezel with bead woven seed beads.

If you are ever in the area you simply must stop at Bead Haven. I always spend way too much money there, but how could I resist?!

Another favorite in Frankenmuth is Rapunzel's. She offers beautiful yarns of many types including Alpaca, Mohair, Cashmere, and of course Wool. There is so much to look at in this store! There are beautiful gifts of jewelry, knitting needles, crochet hooks - did I mention yarn? She is right next door from Zhender's so while you are waiting for your table you can shop the beautiful pieces in her shop.

During this time of year it can be too cold for me to work in the glass shop. This is the time when I work on beadweaving, needle felting, crochet, etc. I follow Pinterest closely and couldn't help but notice the new trend of refashioning clothes. This is a thrifty concept which has been going on for years and has finally gone viral. So I am jumping on the bandwagon. Let me show you how I got started.

I refashioned a very plain turquoise sweater by crocheting circles and fastened them to the collar with a large pearl. I also crocheted around the edge of each sleeve using a simple single crochet stitch. This treatment made the edges "lettuce" a bit, which is very feminine.

I refashioned a plain off white sweater by embroidering lazy daisies in a variety of peaches/oranges (ombre) in a swooping pattern from the left shoulder across the front. I also added peach glass tila beads around the collar.

To start, I added needle felted elbow patches in a red and off white heart. I then added red and white heart buttons around the v-neck collar. This long sleeved red sweater still needed something, so I crocheted off white and red small hearts (about 1 inch each) and added them to the bottom as a border.