Recupfashion: Meet Our Crafting for Animals Artist

A Bit About Nathalie and Recupefashion Nathalie Brault is the owner of Recupefashion and specializes in reduce, reuse, recycle. She has been married 20 years to a wonderful husband and has three beautiful children. She began reusing and recycling as a child when she would save bits and pieces of doll clothes, baubles, knick knacks. She loves all crafts...sewing, knitting, crocheting, jewelry making, but has discovered that sewing, crochet, and jewelry making would enable her to pay the bills.

Slideshow of Nathalie's Creations

Three of Nathalie's Dogs

As a child, Nathalie wasn't allowed to have pets where they lived, so she promised herself that once she grew up she would live on a farm with lots of animals. They don't have a farm, but a house and land large enough to have her old Standard bred horse and pony, five dogs, one cat, one budgy, two cockatoos, one guinea pig, and one rabbit. Every animals except the rabbit and guinea pig have come from an abusive home.

One night, Nathalie opened the door to let her four dogs come in, and there were five. A blond labrador had joined them. They put him back on the porch and gave him food and water. The next morning he was still there, so they decided to keep him, and everything has worked out beautifully. They named her Blondy.

About five years ago in Blainville, Quebec, about 155 Foxies were found living in a house by a man who intended to sell them. He, of course, was found guilty of negligence. The circumstances were horrible......dog feces three feet deep, five to seven animals in one cage, not fed nor given water. The dogs had even killed one of their own for food. They were so hungry that some had chewed off their own paws. Nathalie called the SPCA and offered to adopt one of the Foxies. The very next day they got to meet and bring home their new Foxie, and they named her Tuco. Poor Tuco choked when she ate, walked in circles, and wanted only to be held when she first arrived. She has made great progress and is a wonderful addition to the family. For anyone who wishes to see the horrible situation in which these dogs were living, here is the link:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82ZaGwsixVI


When Nathalie finds animals in distress, she believes it is her duty and please to save them and offer them a good home for as long as she has good health and can afford it. She hopes to find a group to join to which she could contribute part of the profits from her shop.


You can find her products at the following:

http://www.recupefashion.artfire.com/
http://www.recupefashion.etsy.com/
http://www.recupefashionnstuff.etsy.com/
http://www.madeitmyself.com/user/recupefashion.aspx
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The Featured Member column is hosted by bagsandmorebypam. If you would like to be a featured member, please contact her on Artfire.

Marley the monster mastiff mix

The story below touched me as I think I would have done the same thing - put my full heart into Marley and done what I could to keep him. The-puppy-dog-place.com, where this article was taken from, is wonderful so please take a moment to check it out.

With permission, the article "Marley the Monster Mastiff Mix," originally posted at the-puppy-dog-place.com is reproduced below.

by Jenna (Waltham, Ma, U.S.A)

I spent weeks combing petfinder and other similar websites hoping to find a dog that would be good with dogs and children (so I could take the dog to work where there are three children and five small dogs) and hopefully wouldn't eat any of the ten cats in my home.

Weeks went by, I found lots of dogs, but none of them were exactly what I wanted. Problem is that a lot of stray dogs have no history, so it's hard for an overworked shelter to promise that any given dog isn't afraid of children or certain types of people.

I was hoping to find a Mastiff, however no one seemed to have any pure breds. I kept typing "Mastiff" into the field and getting this one particular dog... He was listed as
mastiff/lab... he was estimated to be about 8mos... cute as a button, but there was no info on him... but everyday during my search he turned up.

I finally called and asked about him. Every shelter worker in the place was in love with him. I don't know what happened but I just knew that he was the one. I made them promise not to give him away or put him down, and two days later I drove two
hours from Boston to Conneticut to get a dog that no one knew anything about.

The first day was hard. His leg was severely deformed and I was afraid of what it was going to cost to fix it or treat it, but he got around fine so I tried not to let it bother me. The biggest issue however, was that Marley didn't want to share his new "mommy" with the kitties... so he would attack them when I held them.

I didn't think things would work out. I was pretty sure I would have to bring him back. But when I really thought about it I realized I had three choices: Bring him back to Conn, where they would put him down since he had technically bit me, even though it was accidental, give him to a rescue group who would hopefully work with him and rehome him in a place with no cats, or I could put my heart and soul into this and try to help this dog who, in the 8mos he had spent on this earth had seen nothing but abuse and abandonment.

Within three days Marley knew sit,down, stay,leave it,go in your crate, and maybe a few others. We started walking off leash and interacting with only a few select cats. We got his leg x-rayed and discovered that before his growth plate had closed someone had taken a metal pole to his leg, breaking the growth plate and several other bones, and most likely to his skull, as one eye is slightly deformed also.

I shudder to think what this poor dog went through before the pound found him wandering the streets severely underweight and depressed.

I have had Marley for less than five months now. He almost never has to wear a leash, he follows me everywhere, keeps an eye on the kids I sit for and "babysits" my ferrets while I clean their cage. Marley is probably the biggest marshmallow I have ever met, but one night someone tried to get in my apartment, and the poor dog was so scared, but he barked for all he was worth to wake me up and make sure we were safe.

He protects the children when the Comcast guy comes (I think he just hates Comcast really =}) And his new thing is protecting my rescue kittens. I took in four, four-week old kittens, inevitably they got sick and I lost three. I managed to rescue one of the last two missing ones during all of this, but I couldn't put the new cat with the last failing cat because one was vetted and sick, the other had no medical.

Well they spent an entire night crying to each other, one lonely since he had just been taken from his mom, the other because all three of his siblings had just died. Marley, my enormous 80 pound, mastiff/pitt/lab mix spent the night running back and fourth between them giving them kisses and laying by the cage with them trying to keep them happy. Probably the most amazing thing I ever saw. I know that people think a dog is just a pet, but I would be lost with out my dog. Marley is my best friend, and everyone who meets him falls madly in love with him. He lays with me when I cry, helps me take care of my sick kittens who miss their mom, keeps my boyfriend's 5 year old daughter company (she says Marley is her best friend ever)

He rocks out to Tom Petty and Patsy Cline with me and makes me laugh all the time. I know I sound biased, but marley is the most amazing dog I have ever known. He has really proven that a rescued dog will love you eternally because before me all he ever knew was severe abuse and loneliness, now he's loved, and there is nothing in the world a dog wants more than love.

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This inspirational story column is hosted by sewstitchedup. If you have a wonderful rescue story you would like featured, please send it to her.

February 2009 Newsletter - Valentine's Edition

Welcome to the first newsletter at Crafting for Animals (CFA)!

I'm glad you made your way over to Artfire and I'm even happier that you've joined our brand new guild centered on our loved ones - animals! We have just formed so please bear with us as we continue to grow and shape our guild.

Our New Members!
Please welcome Kibbles, petsinglass, Unique_Garden, TheJewelryCat, LolaLynn, BudandLucysKids, Angeljimbo, bagsandmorebypam, BAKidagain, SpoiledBratzwear, DesignsByTracy, sewstitchedup, Recupefashion, BrandlNiche, outofthepinksky, tantalizingstitches


Show love to your loved ones by giving a gift of love!

***Enter the Its Meow or Never Valentine's Day Contest.
***Send a Valentine to a furry one waiting for a new home.
***Attend a wine tasting and silent auction.
***Take your human friend out on a date by volunteering together at an animal shelter (see step 4).
***Volunteer to help out an adoption event.
***Check out other ideas to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Please join us with our new CFA activities!

January contribution reporting time!
By reporting your contributions (monies and volunteer time) we can show our Guild's growth and strength. You name will not be revealed. More information is available here.

Follow our blog!
We have a new blog at http://crafting4animals.blogspot.com/ - You can follow us with your blogger account.

Be a featured member on our blog!
Pam / bagsandmorebypam is hosting the featured member column. She aims to feature a new member every other week. If you're interested in being featured, please let her know! Also, help her out by timely responding to her requests for information.

Join our flickr group and add your images to our flickr pool!
Cathy / sewstitchedup administers our flickr account and flickr group! Add CFA as a contact and join our flickr group.

Volunteers needed!
***We want to do more but we need your help to do it. Contact me if you're interested.
***Invite your friends to join CFA.
***Boost our forum thread to the top so people notice our guild.
***Help tally contributions.
***Administer our blog - become a blog mommy.
***Contribute an article or host a column in our blog.
***Help us get our guild shop up and running.

Are we missing anything?
Of course! We just started. So, if you have any ideas and suggestions, please send it to me! Better yet, offer to start the project :)

Thanks again and happy Valentine's Day!

El
http://tantalizingstitches.artfire.com/