Donald and Susan Sutherland created Cold Stone Creamery.

 
Have you ever bought something so spectacular that you just had to know who came up with the idea? Now's your chance to see the rarely revealed faces behind some very famous names!

Donald and Susan Sutherland's cool creation has warmed a lot of hearts across the country. In 1988, the couple opened Cold Stone Creamery, a mom-and-pop ice cream shop in Tempe, Arizona.

But business wasn't always booming. "We thought because we knew we could make the best ice cream you could ever taste, it was just going to be a hit right from the start," Donald says. "We were there over 15 months, just the two of us, because there were no customers. I had days where I did less than $6 the whole day."

As their business melted away, Donald and Susan got an unexpected break when a local newspaper said Cold Stone had the best ice cream in town. "All kinds of things came our way just all of a sudden," Donald says. "It just finally happened."
Donald and Susan show Oprah how to make a Cold Stone creation.

 
Today, Cold Stone is a $500 million franchise with more than 1,400 stores worldwide.

One of the reasons why Cold Stone is so successful, the Sutherlands say, is because it's more than just ice cream. Cold Stone creations are an experience—an experience Oprah's getting her very first taste of!

Donald and Susan show Oprah how to create a customized ice cream concoction. Oprah chooses her base ice cream flavor—pumpkin. Then, she chooses pecans, graham crackers and caramel as her toppings. Donald, Susan and Oprah place a scoop of the ice cream on a frozen granite countertop and mix all of these fabulous flavors together with two metal spades.

Cold Stone is a sensation that tickles more than just your taste buds. Because Cold Stone employees have such big personalities, they'll sing a song if you leave them a tip!
Donald and Susan have five daughters.

 
Donald and Susan have five daughters who spent a lot of time growing up in their parents' shop. "They didn't have a whole lot of money so they couldn't afford a babysitter," Summer says. "We were in the back of the store a lot on a bean bag. We had roller skates. We roller-skated around the plaza."

Summer says she never could have imagined how successful Cold Stone would become. "The funny thing is we were really kind of upset when they changed the logo," she says. "It was like a mom-and-pop store, you know, and everything changed and we were like, 'You're selling out.' We were mad. But now, I mean, look at it. We're happy now."

Although the girls weren't required to work at the store, they chose to anyways. "I was a daytime manager for a while," Sara says. "I would make cones and make ice cream every day."

The girls say working in the store taught them discipline—which helps them from eating ice cream all the time! "It's moderation," Susan says. "You can have the products but just not every day."

Now, every audience member can sample the flavors for themselves with a $35 gift certificate to Cold Stone Creamery.
Christian Louboutin

If you love shoes, you'll definitely get your kicks from this designer. "Tina Turner turned me on to these shoes. I was in her dressing room and she had them lined up," Oprah says. "I said, 'What, do they all have names?' Yes, actually, they do. Christian Louboutin."

His red-hot shoes are on the feet of the world's most stylish women. "My shoes are perfect for the very sexy woman who wants to be elegant," Christian says.

Christian is known for his signature red sole, but he says that idea came to him in a moment of frustration. "The shoe looked unfinished. Something was missing. The girl I was working with was constantly painting her nails so I grabbed her nail polish and put it on the sole," Christian says. "The shoe went totally alive. You know, the red sole basically became my identity and totally a trademark."

Oprah calls Christian's shoes "little pieces of sculpture." That's exactly the point, says spokeswoman Shawna Rose. "It's absolutely art for the foot. Christian is inspired by many things ... anything from daily life from a doorknob to a flower to, as one of the shoes is named, a sea anemone," Shawna says. "He brings that into his thoughts and feelings about women, which he's very passionate about."

Women invest in these shoes as they would a painting. "Ten hands and a hundred different processes that go into making each and every shoe," Shawna says. "Every element of the shoe is done by one artisan after another."
Christian Louboutin's passion for pumps began when he was a young boy growing up in Paris.

 
Christian Louboutin's passion for pumps began when he was a young boy growing up in Paris. "I was really 13, 14. I was this type of crazy boy just designing shoes," Christian says.

That crazy boy went on to design shoes for fashion icons like Chanel, but he developed an impassioned following when he launched his own line 16 years ago.

Designing what he calls "life-filled art objects," Louboutin's business is worth millions. "Designing my shoes, I'm thinking timeless. Not trendy," he says.

See Christian's latest designs.

Part of his instinctive ability to know what a woman wants comes from a very creative exercise—the trapeze. "Being on a trapeze is like dreaming. I feel totally outside of myself when I'm flying. You know, designing shoes, my imagination is flying in my drawings," he says.
Laurie chose a pair of leopard print shoes.

 
Unfortunately, Christian came down with bronchitis and couldn't attend The Oprah Show, but he still wanted one very lucky audience member to take home a pair of his signature shoes.

Audience member Laurie is the lucky winner! With a little help from Oprah, Laurie chooses a pair of open-toe Tiger Patent Leather heels. Why did she pick that pair? "Because you're going to wear them with your basic black dress and they're gorgeous, right? And jeans," Laurie says. "And brown and beige and black."

"Wear them in good health," Oprah says.
Gayle's new favorite food is a sandwich created by celebrity chef Govind Armstrong.

We all know that Gayle loves to eat, and it's hard to resist her new favorite find! It's a masterpiece of a sandwich made by celebrity chef Govind Armstrong. Known for his signature small plates and big flavors, Govind has reinvented comfort food at his Los Angeles hot spot, Table 8. With dreams of being a chef since he was a kid, Govind is now tantalizing the taste buds of stars like Elton John, Leonardo DiCaprio and Janet Jackson.

Govind believes you can eat anything you want as long as you have small portions, which is why he wrote his cookbook, Small Bites, Big Nights. "You can eat all day and all night with small bites," he says.

Gayle first met Govind in August when he appeared on her XM radio show. "The thing I remembered most about that interview is the way he described a special grilled cheese sandwich. It sounded so good, I wanted to take him home right then and there," Gayle says.
To savor celebrity chef Govind Armstrong's sumptuous sandwich, Gayle travels 2,000 miles to meet him at Table 8.

 
To savor Govind's sumptuous sandwich, Gayle travels 2,000 miles to meet him at Table 8. Little does she know that the sandwich she's been desperate to try was actually created out of, well, desperation. During Table 8's first week in business, Govind was stressed, sleep-deprived and starving. "We had pulled short ribs on one of the other dishes," he says. "We always have good bread at the restaurant, so just put it all together, put it on the grill, and I really knew I was onto something at that point."

Govind walks Gayle through all the steps on how to make his famous grilled cheese and short rib sandwich, but Gayle's only interested in eating. "I'm a good looker and a good eater," she says. "But this is good for people that really can cook to know."

Make Govind's sandwich at home.

Finally, Gayle takes her first bite. "This is fantastic," she says. "It makes me want to do the I'm-so-happy-the-food-is-so-good dance."

She's not the only one who feels that way about the Table 8 standard! "I've been threatened by a number of guests, if I ever take it off the menu I'm going to run into a lot of trouble," Govind says.
Oprah holds her storage box from The Container Store.

Sometimes the simplest things bring a smile to Oprah's face. In fact, she's still raving about an inexpensive gift she received from Stedman. "One day I had just come home late from work ... and Stedman said, 'Honey, look at this. I got you a present,'" Oprah says. "I said, 'Really? What is it?' And he goes, 'It's a box. You can put anything you want to in it.'"

After filling the green box with letters from her students at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, Stedman took Oprah to the place where he bought her present—The Container Store!

During her first visit, Oprah says she fell in love with this one-stop organization shop. "It's so cool because it had shelves and shelves of hundreds of thousands of different kinds of containers," she says. The Container Store may be a recent discovery for Oprah, but shoppers have been stocking up on storage supplies here for 30 years.

In the '70s, Kip Tindell and Garrett Boone teamed up with Dallas architect John Mullen to develop a unique retail concept. "It was largely inspired by commercial products we'd found that had been used in industry for years to help organize industry, but they'd never been available for use in the home," Garrett says. "So we thought, 'Okay, we'll take those products, we'll put them in a retail store, and we'll create the world's first storage and organization store for the home.'"
Kip and Garrett opened The Container Store.

 
In 1978, Kip and Garrett opened the first Container Store. Now, they have 41 locations across the country, and they're planning to open four new stores in 2008.

Kip says people love products that simplify their lives, but most of all, they love to have a good time. "It's fun to be organized," he says. "Being organized [also] saves you time, and who can't use more of that?"

Find out more about fun storage solutions from The Container Store!

To help Oprah's audience save space and time, Kip and Garrett are sending everyone home with a $150 gift card!
Chuck Williams at Williams-Sonoma

As a little boy, Chuck Williams loved cooking with his grandma. Little did he know, his childhood pastime would one day inspire a multibillion dollar enterprise. Anyone who's ever been in the market for a spatula or a soufflé dish is familiar with Chuck's store...Williams-Sonoma!

Chuck says he was inspired to open his first kitchen shop after a trip to Paris in the 1950s. While in France, he says he took note of the kitchenware French cooks used to whip up culinary delights. "It was fascinating seeing all the cooking equipment—the heavy pots and pans and all the professional tools and bakeware," he says. "I couldn't get it out of my mind when I came home."

At the time, Chuck says heavy pots and pans, especially those made with copper, were not available in the United States. That's when he came up with a business plan that proved to be a recipe for success.
Chuck Williams and Oprah

 
In 1956, Chuck opened his first Williams-Sonoma store in Sonoma, California. Though he says he never thought the concept would catch on, there are currently 260 locations across America and Canada!

"I am surprised [at the success]," Chuck says. "When I started it, it was one little shop for 17 years. And, no, I never expected any more. But look at it today, you know? It's all over the country."

At 92, Chuck hasn't lost his passion for gourmet foods and great kitchenware. Though he's well past retirement age, he's still working at Williams-Sonoma's corporate offices. "I still go to the office," he says. "I don't know why, but I do."

Chuck's not sending the audience home empty-handed. He's giving everyone the three things he loves to sell most at Williams-Sonoma—an Apilco cow creamer, Apilco soufflé dish and a lemon reamer. Bon appetit!
Oprah with her Post-It Flag Highlighter

It costs less than a meal at McDonald's, but Oprah says it's changing the way she does things at work and at home. "It's the most incredible invention, I've got to tell you," she says.

The Post-It Flag Highlighter—a highlighting pen that comes with its own supply of flags attached to the base—is the small invention making a big difference in Oprah's life. Now, instead of flipping to the front of a book to record the location of a favorite passage, she says she highlights and flags pages without losing her place!

Oprah flew David Windorski, a product development specialist for 3M Company who helped invent the pen, to Chicago to thank him in person. "David, I know you never thought this would happen when you were in the 3M room," she says, "but I want you to take a bow before America for the invention of this pen."
David, inventor of Post-It Flag Highlighters

 
David says he got the idea for the Post-It Flag Highlighter by observing college co-eds. While visiting a university, he says he saw students flipping through their textbooks to find highlighted sections.

"Post-It Flags are about finding things fast," he says. "And I thought, 'Well, why couldn't you put the two together and then you'd have the flags right at your fingertips—two in one."

These pens aren't just for the students in your life, as Oprah can attest. David says they're also popular among moms and office workers. Every audience member will get to test them at home, because they're all getting a box of Post-It Flag Highlighters.
The Woelbing family, creators of Carmex

Do your lips begin to tingle at the mention of Carmex lip balm? For the past 70 years, people have been puckering up for one family's secret recipe.

The Woelbings of Franklin, Wisconsin, are the people behind this "addictively good" lip balm. "Our secret Carmex formula is an ointment," says Paul, a member of the Woelbing family. "It starts out as a liquid. It's poured into the jars, and then it travels down conveyor lines. It takes about 10 minutes to cool down to solidify."

Donald, the son of Carmex's inventor, says his dad started making the product because he suffered from chapped lips and cold sores. Now, Carmex is available in 26 different countries, and the family estimates that they've sold more than a billion jars. "We haven't changed [the formula] a bit," Paul says.

Oprah's audience won't have to worry about dry lips for long time...they're all going home with a four-year supply of Carmex!

Christian Louboutin's exclusive shoe collection

Get organized with Container Store supplies!