How to make starter strips

Tear 3x 20 cm strips from an old cotton kitchen towel or pillowcase. Melt the candle wax carefully in an old pot over low heat. Take a strip of cloth between the tongs, dip it briefly into the candle wax, lift it out in the hanging position and wait a while for the wax to solidify. When the wax is completely solidified, roll the waxed strip of cloth.

It’s easy to prepare the chips outdoors when the weather is a little cooler. Then the wax sets quickly on the fabric and you don’t have to wait long for it to set.

If using a firewood stick, unroll it from the end and place it in the fireplace between the firewood. Light a strip of wax between the trees and soon the trees are well alight.

The post Eco-life workshop 5, lighter strips made from candle wastes appeared first on Örreke.

Dishwasher flowers (tablets)

I still buy dishwasher detergent (tablets) from organic shops. Now, I decided to make them by myself, as I have the ingredients in my kitchen. When using homemade detergent, I have noticed that there should be no dried food on the dishes. Black dishes that have been in the dishwasher for several days will not get sparkling clean with the homemade product. And it won’t clean burnt pots and pans. So use scouring paste for them beforehand, and then you can put them in the machine too. 30 g baking soda, 15 g citric acid, 15 g salt, 5 – 10 g vinegar (10%) (1-2 tbsp). Mix the dry ingredients well, so that no lumps remain. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar and quickly mix everything together. Now, the dry ingredients will start to layer and become like wet sand. If the dry ingredients stick together, you have enough liquid. Transfer the mixture into small silicone moulds and leave for a couple of hours. Depending on the size of the mould, I’ve used 1-2 tablets per mould and put them where a normal washing machine tablet would go. If the mixture gets too wet and starts to rise in the mould, then you have used too much liquid. But don’t worry, just let the ‘flower rise’ as long as it does, eventually it will still become hard. If, when dry, it breaks and turns into a powder, you can also use the powder in the dishwasher.

Window cleaner

1 part vinegar (10%), 4 parts water. If you use stronger vinegar, add more water. The window cleaner should be slightly acidic, i.e. you should still be able to touch it with your tongue. If you have very dirty glasses, you can use a little more vinegar.

General cleaning

Suitable for cleaning basins and work surfaces in bathrooms and kitchens. Also, for cleaning toilets. 1 part vinegar, 1 part water, a few drops of lemongrass essential oil. Mix vinegar and water in a spray bottle and add suitable essential oil, if desired.

Dishwashing detergent for handwashing

cSPiece of soap, ca 10 g, 1.5 glasses of water, 1 tablespoon of baking soda, 1 tablespoon of 10% vinegar. Melt the soap in warm water for a couple of hours or overnight. After the soap has melted, add the soda and vinegar to the same water. Your dishwashing detergent for handwashing is ready.

Scouring paste

1 part homemade cleaning dishwashing liquid, 1 part baking soda. Mix the ingredients into a paste. Use for scrubbing particularly dirty surfaces, pots, pans, frying oven. If the surfaces are very dirty, leave them with the product for a while.

The post Eco-life workshop 4, Home cleaning products appeared first on Örreke.

Buttering marzipan

NB! Wash your hands properly and dry them well before you start making the cubes! Soften the marzipan between your fingers. When the marzipan starts to shine a bit, it’s time to start rolling.
The marzipan will stick to your fingers, but I still recommend you don’t wear rubber gloves. Without gloves you will feel the marzipan better. The rolling process is made easier by the food film, which makes it much easier to press the marzipan wider. You will also need a food wrap to wrap the rose. 1. Hollowing out the larger chick
Make two yellow balls, one larger (the body) and one smaller (the head). From the larger ball, push out the tail with the sharp end on the chick’s body. Place the smaller ball on top.
Make two small red balls. One with a hollow beak and the other with a small brush. Add blue edible pearls for eyes. 2. Small chick scoop
Make one yellow ball and two very small balls for wings. Press the small balls into a triangle and attach to the sides of the larger ball. Using red marzipan, make a chick with a beak and a little tassel. You can make the eyes from black marzipan or edible pearls.

Easter bunny making

To make a bunny you need one larger ball (body) and one smaller ball (head) and then four more balls of the same size (paws, ears). For the pink ears and nose, mix together a little white and very little red marzipan. Place two small balls under the body to make paws and press a couple of stripes onto the paws with a toothpick. To make the ears, make a long drop from the white ball and a slightly shorter drop from the pink one. Place the pink drop in the middle of the white one and press into the ear. Do the same for the other ear and place both ears on the head. Add the pink nose and the little black eyes. To make the carrot, mix the yellow and red and roll it into a sausage with a sharp point. Use a toothpick to shred a bit of the sausage and add the green leaves.

Grass and flowers

For the lawn, take the green and roll the ball. Place the ball on the base, cover with cling film and press, gently smoothing to enlarge. The marzipan needs stroking! For the flowers, mix different colours and make a pea sized ball for each flower. Press the ball slightly wider through the foil and, using a toothpick, push 4 slits in the flower (outside in). Place a yellow marzipan heart in the centre and lift the petals of the flower up a little. Place the flowers, the chicks and the bunny on the lawn and your gorgeous Easter cake decoration is ready.

Hollowing the rose

To make a rose, you need six balls of exactly the same size. Make small discs by pressing each ball with a food film. If you make the edges of the disc thinner, the rose will look particularly beautiful. Roll up the first disc. The result is a flower called a calla lily. The ‘funnel’ will remain the heart of your rose, around which you will place the other discs. You press the chains together only at the bottom, leaving them loose at the top. Each successive disc is placed on top of the previous one with a small overlap. When all six discs have been placed around the heart, you can cut off the elongated back end. Place the rose on the lawn and decorate with edible pearls. You can also buy the marzipan wrapping kit from the Örreke e-shop.

The post Marzipan and Easter appeared first on Örreke.

Recipe for 30 g deodorant preparation

10 g of shortening 10 g of baking soda 10 g of starch 1-3 drops of your favourite perfume

The post Eco-life workshop 3, homemade deodorant appeared first on Örreke.

Homemade hand cream is good to make of coconut oil. We get shea butter in Örreke from the village of Kongo, Ghana, with the help of Mondo NGO. In addition, you need some vegetable oil. I had olive oil, grape seed oil and almond oil at home. Be sensible and careful when adding fragrance oil or essential oil. In my workshops, I also always remind people that lotion is not a fragrance oil. Depending on the amount, you could limit yourself to 1-3 drops. For an exact recommendation on the amount, please refer to the instructions for use of the respective oil and it is best not to exceed it. It is safer to add your favourite fragrance oil instead. Vitamin E is a source of skin youthfulness. Vitamin E will also help your homemade cream last a little longer. The easiest way to buy it from a pharmacy. If you make a cream for children, or with children, you don’t need to add vitamin E to the cream. Of course, we don’t use any artificial preservatives, so the recommendation is to make a small amount that you will use up in a couple of weeks.

Easy recipe for 20 g of cream

• 10 g of coconut oil or shea butter
• 10 g of oil
• 1 drop of fragrance oil or essential oil
• 1 drop of vitamin E (you can leave it out)

Put room temperature fat and oil in a bowl and mix with a fork until smooth. Now start whisking the mixture, still with the fork. Whisk until the mixture becomes light and doubles in volume. If you wish, you can now add the fragrance oil and vitamin E. Mix gently and the cream is ready. Put into a small jar. Write on the jar what cream it is and the date when it was made.

Read more about Shea butter here.

You can also buy the cream making kit from the Örreke e-shop.

Watch the short video tutorial on making cream here.

The post Eco-life workshop 2, homemade hand cream appeared first on Örreke.

The post Eco-life workshop 1, making a hand sanitiser appeared first on Örreke.

The tumultuous life of Elvy Kalep

Culture and Life magazine 2/2005 WRITER:HEIKI RAUDLA

When Heiki Raudla read Anto Juske’s story about Estonia’s first female pilot in Sakala in January 2005. Elviine Kalepist, he remembered that there was something about him somewhere in the archives at home. While browsing through the material, he became interested in finding out more, and so the story of a woman who went by the name of Alviine or Elviine Kalep (Kaalep) in Estonia and Elvy Kalep abroad was put down on paper.

As the church records show, Alviine (Alwine)-Johanna Kalep (Kaalep) was born in Pärnumaa, Tori parish, Taali parish on 26 June 1899 (dd). Her father Aksel (Axel) Emil (b. 9.03.1875) was from Jäneda and was a locksmith, her mother Joanna (b. Liidemann) was born in Tori parish on 28 April 1979. Aksel and Joanna married on 6 September 1898.
Elvy was the only child of the family. Records of her long and complicated life, full of legends, were not easy to find and some are contradictory. Moreover, some of the facts come from the press, and in many cases the question arises as to where there is truth and where there is not.

Escape to the East

1. In 2008, a long story about Elvy Kalep appeared in the Florida newspaper The Naples Daily News. It says that she was barely a year old when both her parents died. Kristin’s relatives, who lived on Tähe Street in Nõmme, Tallinn, adopted her into their family. She was a talented girl, but of a restless nature. Even as a small child, she ran away from home to the wide world. However, she was caught at the Baltic station. At the age of eight, she took up drawing and cartooning. After completing her primary education, Elvy went to Tallinn Girls’ Commercial Gymnasium. There, the teachers noticed her bohemian nature and talent, and thought that she would be the talk of the town one day.
   In 1916, Elvy was sent away from the war, first to Narva, then to St Petersburg, but it was there that she was caught up in the revolution. Kalep later described his experience of the revolution as follows. On the other side of the river, on the bank of the river, we were watching a parade of people on the riverbank. To get a closer view, we both climbed the rampart that bordered the bridge and from there we saw the beginning of the revolution. At the end of the bridge there was a large, unruly crowd, a line of soldiers moving, armed cavalry policemen and Cossacks armed with spears and swords. It was the latter who rode back and forth energetically and proved to be the most active in the task of keeping order.
   Somehow, one of the horses backed up against a lamppost and stumbled to the ground with its rider. The man crashed into the kerb and his rifle went off. Hardly had the accidental bang sounded when the crowd literally went mad, apparently thinking that the horseman had fired on the crowd. A half-naked man lying in the street was then attacked and the man was literally mauled to death.”
   The following night, riots broke out on a wider scale and terror, brutality and hunger set in. As Elvy happened to be a witness to the events, he had to spend the night in a police detention centre.
   It took nearly eight years before Elvy was able to get out of revolution-hit Russia.
   Initially, though, all those who had expressed a desire to escape the revolution were ordered to spend the night in a railway station. More than 20,000 of them gathered there. But it took another month or so before they could move. The evacuation, however, did not take place westwards towards Estonia, but eastwards. One of the reasons for this was that Elvy and his step-aunt were supposed to have a brother somewhere near Vladivostok. They were in for trouble near Lake Baikal. A train was sent back from the district a total of eight times, and it was only on the ninth occasion that the fugitives escaped.

Elvy Kalep becomes secretary to Chinese Marshal

When they finally reached Vladivostok, it turned out that their relative had left for China. In Vladivostok, Elvy met a Russian general, Count Slavchev. The two fell in love, then married and had a son. In the Far East, Elvy succeeded in graduating from a commercial high school there. After several attempts to cross Siberia to Estonia and return from the Ural borderlands, they decided to flee to China, where the Russian general had connections with the Chinese strongman Chang Tso-Lin. In the outbreak of revolution and civil war, the family fled to China, leaving behind their possessions.
The first refuge was found in Harbin. The child could not withstand the deprivation and died at the age of one. In the confusion, the man disappeared a year later. However, Elvy’s language skills saved him and he was recruited as an interpreter. Thanks to his talent and good language skills (Russian, German, English and Chinese), he was initially employed as an interpreter for a British general in Mukden (Shenyang). The general had a large arsenal of weapons in Mukden.
Civil war had also broken out in China and the warring generals needed weapons. The ruler of northern China, Marshal Chang Tso-Lin (1873-1928), saw the need for a private secretary. His offers outstripped the Englishman’s, and Elvy became private secretary to the powerful marshal, later the latter’s son, Chang Hsüeh-liang or Zhang Xueling (1898 or 1901-2001).
Elvy, however, was somehow drawn to aviation. In 1924, the first flight in China was to be made in the English Bristol Fighter (one of the most distinguished military aircraft of the First World War). When the plane crashed a few hours before the scheduled flight during a test flight by a Chinese pilot, Elvy decided that if flying was still so dangerous, it was wise to wait. He later explained his interest in aviation and engineering by the fact that he was the only child of his parents and his father was trying to raise him as a boy and his mother as a girl. In fact, he became interested in flying when he was still at commercial high school in the Far East. Later, in 1950, he explained his reasoning. For thousands of years people have longed to fly and have not been able to. Now, for once, it is possible, and why not try to join in.”
His credo was like an African proverb: life must be taken with a big spoon.

Elvy gets pilot papers

1. In 2007, Chang Hsüeh-liang sent his secretary to Europe on holiday. But Elvy had a fancy for life among the wide-eyed Chinese. He and his aunt finally reached Tallinn in 1926, by a rather difficult route (through Sumatra, Italy and France). She stayed with her foster parents for a while before moving to Paris. In Paris, the pretty and energetic woman began to study oil painting with the famous portraitist Alexander Yakovlev, and in the winters she took up bobsleigh racing in Switzerland (where she even won the championship once) and car racing.
   When she visited her foster parents again two years later, she had already established a new career. In Paris, he had married Baron Rolf von Hoeningen-Bergendorff and obtained Austrian citizenship. Her husband was very wealthy and probably German or Austrian by nationality. In the winter resort of St. Moritz in Switzerland, the famous Dutch-born aeronautical engineer Antony Fokker (1890-1939) saw Elvy’s virtuoso skiing and advised her to learn to fly. (According to other accounts, Fokker’s eye was already drawn to the energetic and ambitious female student, whose courage and perseverance appealed to him). Elvy’s studies were not even hampered by the fact that she had broken her right wrist in a sledging accident in the winter of 1931. Fokker, for his part, encouraged her to fly and treated her as his favourite student, with the result that after only five hours of flying (the minimum number of hours required at the time – H.R.) Elvy passed the necessary exams on 1 August 1931 and became the first Estonian woman to receive a professional pilot’s certificate (No. 369, she was the seventh female pilot in Germany with papers). At the same time, she also learned about aircraft engines and was soon free to work as a mechanic. “At that time I was flying a Klemm-Mercedes (specifically a Klemm L2bIIc (D-1132)) and I could dismantle and reassemble the engine of my plane in my sleep,” Kalep confirmed in an interview in 1971.

Flyer with lipstick

In 1931, while in Germany, he flew to North Africa, Asia and European airspace. In a later interview he mentioned. In August of the same year, Elvy Kalep and his mechanic Valter Mayer started a flight with the sports plane Klemm (named after the designer-engineer Hans Klemm) on the route Berlin-Stettin (Szczecin) -Danzig (Gdansk) -Kaunas-Miitavi (Jelgava)-Ria -Tallinn. Already at the beginning of the flight, the plane was caught in a thunderstorm and rain and had to land there. Kalep also had to make a few bad landings later. At Miitavi he had to get lost in a thunderstorm and again had to make an emergency landing. This time the propeller of the plane broke during landing. After the emergency landing, curious Latvian peasants had found Elvy sitting under the wing with a mirror and a lipstick. Elvy’s flight baggage was very meagre at all: a toothbrush and a few other necessities. Perhaps that’s why European journalists called him a pilot with a lipstick. She flew from Riga to Tallinn in an hour and 50 minutes, arriving at Ülemiste Airport at 18.50 on 18 August 1931. There he was met by his hosts and journalists. On 20 August 1931, the newspaper Oma Maa wrote. The aircraft was made by Klemlemlem Klemmer, a factory of the Klemmer factory. The plane was made by Klemmi, a Klemmi factory, with two seats. It was the Klemmi airplane. When he landed, a young man, a German (Valter Mayer – H.R.), sat in the pilot’s seat. The famous female pilot was met at the airfield by air marshals and a number of air force officers and their wives. There were few other private persons at the reception. Red flowers were presented to the female pilot. Mrs. Kaalep herself immediately drove to Nõmme, where her relatives lived. From Estonia, Mrs Kaalep wants to fly to Finland and from there to Brazil to make a sightseeing flight with some other pilots and possibly penetrate unexplored areas of the Brazilian jungle. In Tallinn, Elvy visited her foster parents. She also had the chance to visit Mari Raamoti, the chairwoman of the Estonian Women’s Defence Corps, who presented her with a home defence badge, the Minister of Roads, the Minister of Defence and the head of the Defence League. On 19 August, he started his return flight from Tallinn to be on board a ship in Amsterdam on 2 September, from where he was due to sail on to South America. On his departure, Kalep was sad because this time he was not accompanied by a crowd.”

Before the plane goes, the Võhma ham goes

On the return flight, Elvy was so captivated by the beauty of his homeland that he decided to land near Võhma on the land of the Sagevere farm (now the territory of Kabala parish). The landing of the plane instantly set the whole area abuzz. Hundreds of curious onlookers from Võhma and Ollepa, and even from villages further afield, came to see the rare steel bird and its pilot. Elvy was shown the local sights, given a gift of smoked ham at the Võhma Export Chamber and butter at the dairy cooperative. In the evening, the brave female pilot was greeted by the chief of the Pilistvere militia, the chairman of the Võhma volunteer fire brigade, representatives of the Women’s National Guard and other social organisations. The female pilot was also very well received by the family of Doctor Hans Männik at the Tõnu farm. For the night, the plane was placed in a hayloft, which was guarded by members of the Defence League. From the grounds of the Tõnu farm, Elvy continued its flight to Riga the next morning. This time, she was accompanied by a large crowd.
Arnold Sepp, a journalist from Sakala at the time, recalled the day in his book “Mu meelen” (My Mind) as follows. So fly over! The last phrase, however, had nothing of the sledging quality of wording, because we had a Klemm-Hirth single-seat sports plane always ready to fly at Viljandi airport and our friend Ulrich Brasche, a pilot, lived just halfway between Sakala and the airport.
We immediately informed Brasche of the story, who of course was extremely enthusiastic and less than an hour after the call we too landed next to Elvy Kalep’s plane behind Männik’s barn. Or rather, Elvy’s plane had already been pushed into the barn and the spotting took place at the barn gate. With its wings folded in the barn, the Kalepi plane resembled a sleeping butterfly. Kalep surprised us with his exemplary Estonian. As if in an irony of fate, the Reds built an airfield on the farm land there in 1940-1941.”
Arnold Sepp remembered Kalep many years later in the newspaper Vaba Eesti Sõna: “Twenty-five years to the day when those certain planes landed behind the barn of Männiku in Võhma, a “familiar woman” accompanied by a former Estonian air force soldier, now a long-time resident of Miami, August Mihki, entered the Estonian House in Miami for one of the raids. The latter started to introduce the lady, but we were already looking at each other with glances that what’s there to introduce, we are already acquainted. The warm chatting got under way and stories about flights and the Võhma region were flowing. The flying lady had lost none of her youthful charm, nor her fluent Estonian. What particularly stuck in my mind from this second meeting and conversation was Elvy Kalep’s impetuous story of how the Germans of the Võhma Eksporttapamaja had given her a large censer on her departure. Later, flying somewhere in Europe, Elvy was a little short of money and had to sell the plane to get back to America by ship. “But that incense, I wouldn’t have sold it for anything!” the lady assured him with sparkling eyes. “I didn’t dare eat it, even though my stomach was empty. The other smelled so sweetly of the familiar Estonian farmhouse tare that I’d rather go by plane than this Võhma ham. So I brought the ham to America and it was only here, in the course of the festivities, that it began its natural shrinking process until it ran out somewhere around Chicago.”

Fate brings Elvy Kalep to America

The journey to the Americas was delayed. In 1931, the young female pilot sold her plane to the Shell oil company and emigrated to the Netherlands. On 10 May 1932, Elvy arrived from France to New York on the steamer Paris.
In America, Elvy became friends with Amelia Earhart (1897-1937), a famous female aviator who had already flown across the Atlantic with Slim Gordon and Wilmar Stultz in 1928. She also became good friends with the pilot Wiley Post (1899-1935), who died in a plane crash with his friend and comedian Will Rogers near Alaska in 1935. Writer of witty aphorisms, Will Rogers’ maxim: ‘Better a ghastly ending than endless horror’ proved true for him this time. Post had made his first solo flight around the world in 1933 in 7 days and 18 hours.
On 21 May 1932, Estonian globetrotters, aviator Elvy Kalep and ocean voyager Ahto Valter, along with his brother Jariilo, met at a dinner at the New York Education Society House in honor of the occasion. They had once again crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps it was there that Elvy had the idea of crossing the Atlantic by plane. In 1932, in New York, she was making serious preparations to become the first woman to attempt to cross the Atlantic alone. When her friend Earhart secretly completed her preparations three days earlier and became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 14 hours and 56 minutes in May 1932, Elvy Kalep decided there was no point in repeating the attempt as the second woman. She did, however, join 99 other women in America interested in aviation who had founded the Ninety-Nines in 1929 (by number of founding members), of which Amelia Earhart was the first president. Today, it is an international organisation of nearly 6,500 women pilots from 35 countries around the world.
Kalep had another big oceanic flight planned. On 15 August, she was due to take off with pilot Roger Q. Fischer. On August 15, she was due to fly from Los Angeles to Athens in honour of the Olympic Games with Roger Cape Williams (1895-1976). Initially, he planned to fly to Estonia, but could not find sponsors. The planned epic race was reported in all the major American newspapers, but then it turned out that the race was cancelled. Instead, the newspapers reported that Elvy Kalep had married stockbroker W. E. Hutton-Miller, who was categorically against the trip.
In Estonia, Kalep was somehow thought to be a millionaire and began receiving letters from benefactors. The letters were sent to New York airport and arrived. Elvy felt that “this kind of assistance is harmful because they are morally corrupting a person. A person has to manage his own life.” He stayed true to this principle even when he needed help later.
At the time, flying was still very dangerous. In 1919-1930, 28 people had died in attempts to fly across the Atlantic.In 1931, Earhart tried to fly a helicopter across America, but failed. In 1937, Earhart, who had set dozens of records, attempted to circle the globe around the equator, but was lost over the Pacific Ocean in early July with navigator Fred Noonan. There are many legends about his disappearance, and the exact place of his death is not known. Amelia Earhart wrote the following prophetic lines to her husband, the publisher George P. Putnam, before her final ascent. I am doing this simply because I want to. Women, too, must strive to do something like men. And if they fail, the failed attempt is a challenge to others.”
Elvy Kalep was probably motivated by the same thoughts.

Trouble is the best teacher

Instead of flying, Elvy Kalep started giving lectures about Estonia and aviation. In the early 1970s, she recalled: “I used to talk to Americans about everything, and when they asked me what the Estonian language sounded like, I would always declaim, ‘When the people of Kungla on the golden aal…'”. the first verse, which I think best describes the beauty of the Estonian language. The Americans loved it.” As an indirect result of his lectures, his first children’s book, Air babies (H.R.), starring his sister and brother Speedy and Happy Wings, was published in 1936 and illustrated by himself. About her book, Elvy Kalep later said that she wrote it with the aim of eliminating prejudice and fear of flying in young people, especially in parents who discourage young people. For some reason she was not happy with the illustrations in her book and, when all 100 000 books had been sold, she cancelled the contract with the publisher. A second edition was published in 1938 and a third in 2003. However, Kalep’s characters were so popular in America that they were even made into wallpaper in America. Even today, offers and requests to buy the book can be found on the Internet.
In a message, friend Amelia Earhart wrote, among other things, “When I recently did a survey of children’s aviation literature, I found that, unfortunately, very little was written for young people. Anyone who has worked in the industry will know that, of the whole population, it is the youth groups that are very important when it comes to aircraft and air travel. I hope that Air Babies and kids can become good friends”.

57 dollars

1. World War II, which began in 1999, had put an end to some European subsidies, his marriage to a stockbroker had ended, and as Kalep had only $57 in his wallet on the day Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, he had to look for more permanent employment. The idea of providing children with something related to the age of aerial bombardment was a delightful one, and so Kalep launched the Patsie Parachute, a small parachute doll that dropped gracefully and wonderfully into the air.
   This was the beginning of Kalep’s new business, which made him a household name in New York. He himself commented on it rather modestly: “I think up silly things and take the patents on them and give them to industrialists or produce them myself. Is there more money in the world given out for anything else than pleasant follies?”
   The factory near New York, which employed 60 women, did not, however, make much money. Since there were no men available to work in the industry during the war, the tragic factory had to carry its own heavy burdens. Overworked, Kalep fell ill and was forbidden by his doctor to lift heavy packages. Finally, in 1946, he had to close the doll factory. The factory owner himself, however, had to take steps to improve his overstrained health and recuperate. All the money he earned was spent on health insurance. By 1950, he had recovered and was inventing new things, taking out patents on them and sending them to thousands of shops for sale. Among the latter was F.A.O., New York’s largest children’s toy store. Schwarz on Fifth Avenue, one of the windows of which is completely decorated with Elvy Kalep’s new dolls, the so-called Scribbles dolls, whose faces can be drawn by any child and re-drawn as needed.
   Kalep told the story of how he came up with this new best-selling doll in 1950. After the doll factory closed down after the dolls were no longer made, I started to draw faces on them as a pastime. Because of a pencil problem, I started to erase the drawing on one of the faces, and the idea suddenly crossed my mind: why not let the children do it themselves? And now they can do it. With the doll, each child gets 5 crayons, an eraser and a “learning book” from the shop. With these tools, each child can give their doll a 1000 different looks on its face.”
   Elvy Kalep is back in full creative and working mode. Her dolls are in the spring catalogue of the popular company Schwarz. Her pace of life is frantic, interspersed with interviews for newspapers, radio and television. The energetic lady was already thinking of setting up a new factory. The latter, however, did not materialise.
   Little is heard of her in the years that follow. It is not known exactly when Kalep stopped flying. However, her traces did not disappear for good.

Lone wolf

1. In 2008, The Arlington News published a long story about female aviator Elvy Kalep. In the same year, Pedro Krusten also wrote about her in Vaba Eesti Sõna. We learn that she is still proud and independent, and not looking for help from welfare. While living in California in 1960, acquaintances gave him five pieces of leather, all of which were his own colour. They added that she was a clever woman and maybe she could make something out of them. Maybe a pair of glasses. Elvy initially put the pieces of leather under the bed because she wasn’t interested in making glasses. Halfway through, a colourful mosaic popped into her mind’s eye: a Mexican, a cactus…. The next morning, someone gave him a piece of cardboard and some glue, and the night vision became reality. He liked the image and decided to take up a new hobby for a living. He trained for a year and then took out a patent on his invention. In 1967, still without a home, he travelled around America, exhibiting his work in expensive clubs, because experience had shown that he could only find buyers for his work among the rich. You can read Pedro Krusten’s story: “At the library in Arlington, his hand did not go well. He cancelled the courses he had advertised because there was no interest in them.We took his pictures from the glass case and took them outside, where his station wagon was parked. In the large vehicle, there was only room for him to sit. All the rest was taken up by his possessions, which were under the carpets. Mostly pictures. He brought out a large dragon. “My fifth job like this,” he said. “The first four have found a buyer, though. The price is two thousand dollars.” Of pieces of skin from lizards and worms. Very beautiful colours. He orders the skins from Europe. “I’m like a gypsy,” he says as he starts the car. “A lone wolf,” I thought, “proud and independent.”” Because of his declining health, in November 1986 he moved to the Regency Health Care Center (a so-called “retirement hotel”). He had no contact with his fellow countrymen for the past few decades, although he considered himself a good Estonian. Elvy Kalep died in Lake Worth (Palm Beach, Florida) on August 15, 1989. She had no relatives in the USA. He was buried alone, forgotten, but with the hope that perhaps he would be remembered in his native Estonia.

The post Flyer with lipstick appeared first on Örreke.

Let’s make a traditional soap!

author: Katarina Papp, Let’s go to Zero!

Usually, I have made my soap from a ready-made soap mix, simply because I already know how to make it and it is very quick. This time, however, we made the soap from scratch under the guidance of Örreke’s partner Relumee. And now, Örreke is also offering a workshop on how to make soap. The process of making such soap is definitely much longer and more thorough than with ready-made soap, but the result is worth it!

Why make your own soap at all?

“It’s a common question I ask children in the Örreke soap workshop. Usually, the first answer is “because it’s free”. So, I always explain to the kids that it’s not really free, and that good quality homemade soap can also be more expensive than regular shop soap.
I make my own soap for three reasons:

1. You have to be very careful with shop soaps and other cosmetics, so you don’t get any chemicals on yourself. Check out the ingredients to avoid in cosmetics here.
2. Reducing waste. By making my own soap, I can avoid packaging.
3. However, if you make your own quality soap at home, it will probably be cheaper than buying handmade soap.

But as I said, making your own soap from scratch is quite an undertaking and requires a lot more knowledge than just making soap from a ready-made bar of soap. So, the first time you do it, I’d definitely recommend calling in someone more knowledgeable.

Soap with soapstone

We made soap with soapstone and cold process. You have to be careful with soapstone because it has a corrosive effect if it gets on your skin or if you inhale its vapour. So, gloves on and masks on. To be honest, it’s a perfect corona workshop:)))
Hopefully you’re not worried about washing with soap that contains corrosive substances! Namely, the soap will be ready to use after 1-2 months and by that time the soapstone will have neutralised and won’t be dangerous in any way.
Making the soapstone solution was quite interesting because after mixing the soapstone and water, the solution became very hot after a while. So it was an exciting chemical reaction:) Be sure to wait until the solution cools down before mixing it with the fats.

Be precise when weighing!

While when making all kinds of creams, ointments, lip balms, it is not so important that all the ingredients are measured to the gram, you need a precise hand when making soap. The ratio of ingredients is also important. Maybe it doesn’t work here that if I put a little more of one fat, I put a little less of the other.

Melting and blending fats

We made two kinds of soap. One recipe was with shea butter and the other with cocoa butter. In both, coconut oil was added. We melted the fats at a low temperature and mixed them into the cooled soap solution. Then you have to mix with a whisk until when you lift the mixer out the mixer trail remains in the mixture. Do not mix until too thick, as this will make it difficult to pour the mixture into the moulds. Once the mixture has the right thickness, you can add various dried herbs, clay, etc., and add scents. The final step is to pour the mixture into the moulds. All kinds of yoghurt pots, salad tins, etc. can be used as moulds.

Waiting

That’s the hardest part, because you have to wait about a month. But the older the soap, the better. Young soap wears off faster and can even go flat. Since we are still waiting for our soaps to be finished, we can’t share any experience yet, but expectations are high.

Do it yourself too!

If soap making sounds exciting to you too, the Relumee website has lots of tutorials and recipes. You can also get all the ingredients there. If you want to book an on-site soap making workshop, invite Örreke’s family soap workshop.

The post Let’s make some real soap! appeared first on Örreke.

You can find both beeswax crafting and mending kits in our online shop.

The post Wrap your sandwich into self-made honeyfabric appeared first on Örreke.

Whereas he tanned the rabbit skins by himself. And the rabbit meat steak from the wood-fired oven was mouthwatering! I still have the coat and use it. If there only were coat-worthy winters! I even remember that my grandfather made soap by himself, which was used to clean the woolen clothes nicely. Most of the clothes were sewn by my mother by herself for me and my brother, and they were worn until the end of the wearer’s life or passed on to younger relatives. The soft party shoes were made by a shoemaker I know. I also often babysat my cousins, and changing gauze diapers was part of the “work”. The faster the child learned to go on the potty, the less time it took to wash cloths. When I reached girlhood, I also learned how to make “sanitary pads” from gauze and cotton. Cotton handkerchiefs were also in use, washing them was a bit of a chore, but there was no choice. Of course, such handkerchiefs, where the lace was crocheted with a wonderful thread, were in the honor. Washing the head with egg or bread and rinsing with nettle water were also done in childhood. Quite often it also happened that the hot water did not come from the tap, and then there was nothing left, but to learn the tempering. Shared saunas and running in the snow barefoot are also fondly remembered. Meanwhile, it all seemed to disappear. It is a great pleasure to recognize that eco-life is the new normal and that our own experience is used here to encourage young people. Don’t put the plastic bag in the trash and go to the store with your own net, because that’s what we did when we were kids, and that’s how it is now – almost 40 years later.

The post The eco-life of the Soviet era – a dishcloth from a rug box and bread for head washing. appeared first on Örreke.