Welcoming in 2013 with Mortimer

Happy New Year from Dead Men's Spex!

I hope you have all survived the Mayan prophecy, floods and sickness bugs and managed to enjoy your Christmas period with some feasting, festive cheer and lots of pressies.

Santa remembered us, but alas, he did manage to mix up one of Deadman's presents with one of Deadman junior's presents; surely it couldn't be that he had forgotten his glasses?? Not in this house!! It must've been the cumulative effect of all those glasses of  sherry. Despite this little mishap he managed to deliver a bumper crop of presents, most of them for Deadman junior, but I did get a lip plumping gel which looks fun, we are known in our family for thin lips, maybe miracles can occur; I just hope I don't land up like Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor!

Look at that pout.

We are also proud to welcome a new member of the gang; he is Mortimer our mascot and from now on he will be popping up every now and then.

Mortimer

Have a good time celebrating and thank you for your support of  Dead Men's Spex throughout 2012.

Happy New Year 

Claire xxx

Merry Christmas from Dead Men's Spex

Hi There
The festive season is upon us and even our mascot Mortimer is feeling jolly.

We have started getting into the Christmas spirit at Dead Men's Spex, festooning the place with tinsel and baubles. On Saturday we took Deadman Junior to Sheringham Little Theatre to see Jack and the Beanstalk. It was great fun; Jack's mother, Dame Molly Coddle was fantastic, her outfits were to die for!

 Jack, Moo Tube the cow, Jill and Molly Coddle in Sheringham.

This week Deadman is busy in his workshop, I think he may have to go and help Santa if he gets snowed under. I will be slaving over a hot stove, we do like food in our household, and are particularly fond of pies. I hope you have a fun time, but if it all gets too much you can always resort to some rose tinted specs.

Tinted Pince- Nez

Just remember go steady on the Christmas booze so you don't fall over a balcony and lose your glasses!
(Yes Ewan, I mean you.)

Merry Christmas to you all.
Claire

Short sighted ghosts..

Hi There

It's cold enough to freeze a dead man's spex today, Deadman junior and I had a slippery journey to school , it was more tottering dangerously than Torvill and Dean. ( Yes, I have teenage memories of glamorous ice dancers in blue sequins writhing gracefully to Ravel's Bolero ) 


Torvill and Dean; if only I had such grace!!!

Fortunately, the weather has not deterred the deadman; he has been labouring away in his workshop well prepared with a heater, some cosy boots and new double glazing, I also keep him supplied with tea and biscuits. He has just come in with a box full of prepared fames to photograph to put on the website tomorrow.

I enjoyed my day out taking the Dead Men's Spex stall to Little Vintage Lover Fair on Sunday,  the weather was incredibly bright and I sold some stock including two pairs of sunglasses!

Deadman junior loves the 1st of December as it means he gets an advent calendar from his grandparents. Last year he had a chocolate one but he wasn't overly keen, he prefers savouries, if he could have one with crisps in he'd be happy! Deadman's hoping for one containing pork scratchings. This year, much to junior's delight he has a joke advent calendar.

Today's joke is:

 "What does a short sighted ghost wear?" "Spooktackles."

That's all from chilly and muddy Norfolk!

TTFN Claire

Off with a Little Vintage Lover

This week I've been cracking the whip over Deadman to get him working preparing stock for our Deadmen’s Spex stall at Little Vintage Lover Fair this Sunday the 2^nd December at Blakeney Village Hall. It is a small eclectic fair which moves around North Norfolk specialising in vintage and vintage reworked items including fashion and home wares from around the 1920s to the1980s. Everyone is very friendly and they often have fun music from the 1930's supplied by dj.78 AKA Dave Gutteridge who always dresses beautifully complete with glasses from Deadmen's Spex. They also do great cake, which tastes even better when Bunny buys me a slice. 

dj.78 catching up with the news

I will be bringing a varied selection of spectacles; for the ladies I have 1950’s cats’ eyes through to 1980’s Terri Brogan frames. For the men I have selection of reworked frames and the ever popular Shurons. In the unisex frames I have some classic favourites including NHS 524s ,1940’s round eyes and  Algha  gold half eye readers. I'm tempting providence rather with a tray of sunglasses, hoping that the rain has finally been pushed away. When the sun does show itself  in the winter it is incredibly dazzling and I find myself desperately groping for my sunnies whilst driving (at traffic lights of course!) There will also be accessories;  fabric glasses cases and spexlaces which are necklaces made from spectacle fronts.
                                                           

                                                                

A selection of our frames           


                               








 

 A spexlace                                                                                                    











I'm also selling a few cigar boxes on the side, Deadman got rather excitable at an auction and we landed up with rather more than he had bargained for. They are very pretty and beautifully made so I hope they may tempt a few people to be creative and turn them into handbags or even guitars!.

Cigar boxes 

So I look forward to seeing some of you on Sunday
TTFN

Holt; a great place for vintage shopping.

Hi There

Last week Deadman and I made a trip out to Holt, it’s quite close to us and a great place in Norfolk for vintage shopping. It has plenty of antique/vintage shops including Past Caring which specialises in antique textiles and clothing, and Old Town a tailor’s doing their own unique take on 1930/40s clothing.

We paid a visit to our friends at The Tonsorial Artist; a traditional barber’s shop with a leaning towards the styles and service of the 1950s. They now have a tattoo parlour on their premises with an artist specialising in Old School images.  Whilst there we got a couple of photo’s of Ewan the “shop boy”, I mean apprentice (we know he looks like a youthful captain Ahab with the beard!) He’s modelling a pair of our popular Arnold frames, the same as those worn by Bunny Hooper. They are a copy of the Tart Arnel frame as worn by Johnny Depp. The question is; who looks the best??! (We have to choose Bunny as he does our accounts!)

Make your choice....                                         1 Bunny Hooper

2 Ewan

3 Johnny Depp

TTFN Claire

Dead Men's Spex in Pinstriping and Kustom

Hi There

Wow, it’s Tuesday already, the week is running away with me, yesterday morning was sunny so I attacked the front garden and removed a load of dead flowers and tidied up the border. There were a few late marigolds lurking in the undergrowth so I brought them inside to brighten up the dull days.

Cheerful marigolds in November

Christmas is looming and we have decided to advertise Dead Men’s Spex in a different publication, so look out for our new advert in the Christmas edition of Pinstriping and Kustom Graphics Magazine. It is a bimonthly publication covering Low Brow art, tattooing, kustom klothing, music and lifestyle. It is a fun, eclectic magazine which we think goes well with our company's ethos. 

Right, that's all for now,

Claire

Home alone at halloween

Hi There

It has suddenly gone very quiet here at Deadman’s towers; Deadman junior has been whisked away by his grandparents to Bedfordshire leaving Deadman and me home alone. The grandparents have been here all weekend and my father is an enthusiastic whistler, so the silence is all the more marked!

On Saturday we attended the Fairyland Trust’s Real Halloween event. I was hoping to show off my tulle and coat hanger wings, but the weather was just too wet so they stayed in the loft.  Deadman junior and his Nan made potions (bath bomb and sleeping potion) whilst Deadman, Grandpa and I followed the fairy trail in the wood. Afterwards we enjoyed the lively and entertaining music of The Vagaband in the music tent

Families warming themselves at a brazier in a brief moment of sunshine. 

On Sunday we headed to Deadman Junior’s favourite place; The Sainsbury Centre at the UEA in Norwich. They do loads of interactive art and Deadman Junior and Nan spent hours creating miniature landscapes from assorted fabric and twigs. Meanwhile Grandpa, Deadman and I perused the exhibitions. We discovered Larkin and Mortimer looking cool in an exhibition by  photographer John Hedgecoe.

Philip Larkin

Poet and Librarian  

             

John Mortimer 

Playwrite, poet and novelist          

However, Dead Men's Spex model of the week went to the pumpkin in the café!!!

 TTFN  Mrs Deadman

Rose tinted spectacles and funky fish

Hi Folks,

This week has seen a flurry of activity here at Deadman Towers. On Monday Deadman ventured out of the county to Nottinghamshire for the day leaving me to my own devices. He returned with a batch of beautiful gold round eyes, some of which are already on our website.

We have recently splashed out on a tint bath, for ophthalmic lenses, (not my hair, although the time for that is very close, I fear.) On Friday Deadman was getting in the Halloween spirit mixing coloured concoctions in said tint bath. He presented me with a tray of beautiful pince nez and monocles. We now have pink, blue and green. The yellow and lilac are yet to come. Deadman junior has a plain red lens which looks like a boiled sweet. This could be good for tricks on grandparents and other unsuspecting relatives.

Our collage of the tinted lenses. 

This was a joint effort between myself and Deadman Junior, 

my technical advisor when it comes to using Picasa and Picnik.

Tinted monocle are now on the website here

On the domestic front, the sausages in lard have been duly placed in the vicar’s donation box in the church and the courgette is still producing, but not quite as vigorously as before.  The chickens have had an extension on their run. It was getting incredibly muddy and now they have a lovely patch of fresh grass, until they start scratching around on it.

On Saturday we met up with our friend Bunny Hooper and his two children at West Runton a great place for rock pools. The tide was in when we arrived so we took a stroll along the beach to Sheringham. Having company definitely speeds Deadman Junior along; he can be a very reluctant walker. 

Bunny and Deadman looking wise

After lunch on the terrace of the Funky Mackerel we headed back to West Runton. There was a camera crew out on the rocks and Deadman Junior was highly intrigued by this, he kept drifting out towards them only to be reeled back in landwards by his dad. When they returned to their van, I asked the question and discovered they were filming about a 17^th century Norwich man called Thomas Browne. Deadman Junior was impressed.

Bunny modelling the Arnold our Tart Arnel copy.

TTFN

Claire

Sausages for the vicar..

Hi There

Deadman Towers calling. We are currently enjoying some beautiful autumn sunshine here in Norfolk. I must go and cut the courgettes before the frost slays them. We have one beast of a plant which has taken over half of the bed and produced wholesale quantities of prize winning fruit. (Our neighbour’s son took some of them to his school harvest festival and won second prize.) Deadman junior’s school however, requested store cupboard goods only for a local food bank. I tried to sneak a can of sausages in lard presented to us by Deadman Sleeping (Granddad) into Deadman junior’s donations but I relented due to complaints about the humiliation of it all. I have plans for the can; the vicar requested further items for the food bank to be left at the rear of the church...

The offending article

On Saturday 6^th October Pensthorpe Wetlands and Nature Reserve (where they used to film Springwatch) ran their first vintage fair. It is very local to us, so we went to have a recce to find out if it would be a suitable place for Dead Men’s Spex to have a stall. We met several of our neighbours and saw a wide range of vintage vehicles including tractors, motorbikes and a lovely little Morris Minor. There was also an impressive display of stationary engines. (I, in my ignorance, had never heard of these until I moved to Norfolk.) They are what it says, engines which do not move and are used to power tools and pumps etc. Deadman junior was highly impressed with these, many  were pumping water into a tub containing ducks, one was even rigged up to 1970’s brown toilet! Deadman junior and I went on the swing chairs ride and Deadman was our official photographer.

A stationary engine

Us on the 1950's swing chairs- they went fast, honest.

We enjoyed our visit but decided that vintage covers a wide range of subjects and in this case, the emphasis was on vehicles not period fashion, so we will not be having a stall there.

Many happy returns... toot,toot!

Hi Folks,

Mrs Deadman here.

I have taken up the baton of blog writer for Dead Men's Spex. I was alarmed to see that a year had whizzed past since our last post. I would like to update everyone as to the chicken status at Dead Men’s Towers. The Deadman won! He joined forces with our neighbour and now we have 3 chickens on the allotment. Initially they were very good at dutifully producing eggs but now the supply has dwindled to a big fat zero! Apparently, this is down to them moulting, We could make a feather bed, or at least, a pillow, from the feathers wafting around their pen. That would be very “make do and mend”! I have had to resort to buying eggs from the neighbour who initially supplied the birds, much to his delight.

Turning now to glasses, we have had a busy summer and three good shows; Twinwoods, Little Vintage Lover Fair  and Sheringham 1940’sweekend.  It was lovely to see so many of you again and to enjoy a rain free Twinwoods, something of a luxurious novelty.

 The man himself ready to greet you at Twinwoods!

And again, modelling a customer's Bugatti racing hat with 

integral goggles.

Do you not think that he bears a remarkable resemblance to 

Mr Toad?

As autumn is here, Deadman is now settling back into his rightful place in the workshop. We have just received a delivery of gents’ frames, so look out for them on our website.