Two childhood friends partnered with Operation Smile this holiday season to launch the "Zachary, Luke, or Griffin" Teddy Bears found exclusively on Operation Smile's Facebook Giving Catalog and through the Operation Smile website. The bears are named after Lisa Lori's three sons, all born with facial paralysis. After enduring years of surgeries to give her own children their smiles, Lori, a publicist, partnered with her childhood friend Kathy Van Zeeland, a handbag designer, to design three commemorative bears to bring comfort to children worldwide suffering from facial deformities. The two friends hope the bears will inspire people to give a smile and emphasize how vital these surgeries are for a child's life.

Beth Phillips chats with six needle-felting artists about their miniature creations, the felting process and collector appreciation.

Needle felting: The concept sounds simple enough. Take a ball of wool and stab it with a special barbed needle, again and again, and voila—instant art! The execution, however, is much more difficult.

Honor your genealogy with a family heirloom bear from Bracken Bears.

It was love at first sight—there for the world to see, blatantly in a centerfold spread, begging to be mine. How could I resist those cheeky brown eyes peeking through spiky, blond hair? Could this aristocratic beast want to be mine? Would he be interested in me? The answers were just a phone call away. After the first ring, a cheerful voice answered: “Hello, Susan here! How can I help you?”

Finhold Gallery’s tiny teddies are packed with personality.

Jack and Marion Finhold bring their passion and strong creative instincts to everything they do. From Jack’s flair for experimentation in the kitchen and mastery of several musical instruments to Marion’s love of the written word (their house is filled with her collection of books) and talent for knitting, the couple’s artistry comes together to make some of the world’s most captivating teddy bears.