New Easel Card, Cottontail tiny babies, and more squirrels...

Here is the easel card I have been working on for a few days now.  Thing is, I constantly have to stop and feed hungry baby squirrels and as of today also cottontail bunnies, and a round of feeding now takes well over 1 1/2 hours.  Thankfully my husband has been helping out by cooking supper and feeding the pets.

I used one of Poppystamps' Grand Gothic Windows and built it up with a foam cut-out wedged between two die-cuts to give the window dimension.  The ivy is from Marianne and hides the stop that props up the easel.  The background die is a Spellbinders Grateful Lattice die, the small greenery climbing up on the window's right side is also a Marianne die, and the lilac blossoms

are handmade by Yours Truly.  Since this is such a dimensional and special card I opted for yet another box, matching the background die and lilac color in the loopy bloom (Die-namics).  

I love coming up with ways to make the easel and bottom part of a card flow together.  Yes, it is time consuming, but then again, nothing on any of my creations ever says "five minute craft".  I am putting this card up for sale in my Etsy Shop since there is still plenty of shopping time left for Mother's Day, and I know that the lucky recipient will love it.

Crafting is going much slower now that I have my hands and house full with wild babies.  The gray squirrel baby count has shot up to 11, and today three very young, at most 10 days old baby Cottontail bunnies joined the club.  A dog had found the nest and would not leave it alone, so the owner finally rescued the surviving babies.

Cottontail bunnies are the wildlife rehabilitator's nightmare because they truly have a death wish.  But in reality their intestines are extremely fragile, and a missed meal means that tender filaments that line their intestines start to shrivel up and die, which means the baby can no longer properly digest food.  This is why so often a baby seems to do well for a day or two and then suddenly dies.  Have that happen to an entire litter and you might be able to imagine how devastating that is especially for a new rehabilitator.  We discourage taking on baby bunnies until a rehabber has grown a bit of a tougher skin although it is never easy to lose a baby.

These babies were supposedly taken from the nest only today, and time will tell if that is true and they had been fed by mom until then.  They are very tiny, weighing only 42, 45, and 50 grams. Their eyes are still closed, but they all drank a full portion of formula, a huge first step in the right direction.  Sometimes a baby outright refuses to swallow and lets the formula just run out of its mouth, and such a baby is doomed.

A group of young women happened to be outside when four orphaned baby squirrels found the courage to leave their tree and seek help.  Skinny little munchkins, they picked up quickly and are thriving.  And another tiny one was found by a 13-year old girl who went online and did everything right by making her own rehydrating formula and giving it to the baby with a very small dropper.  She also kept the baby warm on a heating pad.  This girl saved that little baby and did better than most adults who often bring me half dead and often wet and cold babies lying on a handful of wet grass in a cardboard box.

So here are a few pics of my newest charges.

 Litter of three tiny Cottontail bunnies











One of the bunnies, the largest of the three.










Snoozing baby squirrels.  No matter how big their nest is, they like to sleep piled on top of one another.











I hope you enjoyed this post and pictures.  Keep your fingers crossed that the tiny bunnies will thrive!

Happy Sunday!
Sigi