Any way to stretch background image
I'm trying to create a counter similar to the one [here](http://milliontrees.ca). Which counts up by stretching/squeezing images.

But I'd rather use sprites than images for the numbers. The only problem is I cannot see a way to animate a background image stretching with javascript. I know there is the background-size css3 property, but that's not available to the jquery animate method and a bit strange.

Is there any other way I could accomplish this? 
Is there a way to somehow use sprites with images instead of background-images?
Any way to stretch background image
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I'm trying to create a counter similar to the one [here](http://milliontrees.ca). Which counts up by stretching/squeezing images.

But I'd rather use sprites than images for the numbers. The only problem is I cannot see a way to animate a background image stretching with javascript. I know there is the background-size css3 property, but that's not available to the jquery animate method and a bit strange.

Is there any other way I could accomplish this? 
Is there a way to somehow use sprites with images instead of background-images?