Pillow Pets

Garrison has been very excited about something called a pillow pet lately. I'd never seen one myself, but Justen described it to me as a pillow with a stuffed animal head attached. Everyday for the last two weeks Garrison has been coming home from school telling me he wants a pillow pet like two of the girls have, and everyday I tell him his regular pillow works fine. Of course I was thinking this was just something silly and his focus on it will fade. It hasn't. Then the other day Justen and Garrison stopped at Walgreens to pick up my prescription and there they were. The often heard about but never seen pillow pets. Garrison was so excited to show them to Justen and tell him all about the ones the girls at school have, and how much he wants one. Justen thought about it for a minute, and luckily his common sense told him I'd kill him if he spent $25 on a silly stuffed animal. Now had it been a stuffed tractor pillow, he probably wouldn't have thought twice, but that's a story for another day. They came home and Garrison proceeded to tell me the account of how they saw them at the store, and how much he wanted one but Daddy said they were to expensive. As Justen described it, I got thinking, how hard can this be to make? So my quest today while I laid in the recliner (thank you crud that just doesn't want to leave me), was to find out what these things were and more importantly how to make them.
Here are the tutorials I've found out there in the blogosphere (seriously what did we do before the internet?)


Part 1
http://twelvecraftstillchristmas.blogspot.com/2010/07/pillow-buddy-tutorial-part-1.html

Part 2
http://twelvecraftstillchristmas.blogspot.com/2010/07/pillow-buddy-tutorial-part-2.html

And one about how to make one using a dollar store stick horse (I wouldn't use a unicorn like she did)
http://www.filthwizardry.com/2010/08/home-made-freaky-unicorn-pillow.html

I'm thinking about doing a brown puppy because I already have some brown fleece up in the cabinet. Or maybe a lady bug one because I have those colors of fleece too. Now, the real question... Will it actually happen in time for Christmas? I honestly don't know. We had planned on finishing the front landscape this weekend but now we're all sick. I had taken a day off last week in hopes of cleaning my house and all I managed to do was organize my fabric closet. So reality is it may not happen, but I figured I have a better chance of doing it if I post it here than if it's just one more idea running around in my head.


Edit to add: The other idea running around in my head... Could you put a zipper in it and use an actual pillow as stuffing? That way I could take the cover off and wash it. If anyone can figure out an easy way to do that please fill me in, because around here everything needs to be washable.