A couple of years ago my son Gabe became obsessed with a little stuffed animal called a JubJub. A JubJub is a type of Neopet and they made stuffed animal versions of the virtual pets.

The first one Gabe had was a McDonald’s happy meal toy. We’ve bought more JubJubs from eBay since people have collected them over the years and are selling them on eBay now.

A JubJub is basically a fuzzy round ball with big feet and a tuft of hair on top. Javis’ mom made a pattern and it took me quite a few hours to make this one by hand. (Next time I’m going machine stitch the parts that I can.) I added a little fuzzy white tail with a red tip colored with a red Sharpie. I had to brush up on my embroidery skills around his eyes.

Gabe named this one Tanooki Jub. A tanuki is a Japanese raccoon dog. In the game  Super Mario 3D Land one of the special powers Mario can get is a tanooki suit. It is a raccoon looking suit with a striped tail that whirls around in a circle when worn by Mario and lifts him up into the air!

Here he is with a friend. You can see a bit of his tail peeking out behind him.