THOUGH DEENA PRESTEGARD has been making cranberry wreaths for roughly 20 years, living in the Boston area, it wasn’t until she moved to Freeport in 2011 and took a free class for entrepreneurs offered by Women, Work and Community that her seasonal hobby became a business.
Peeping out of a cardboard box, one of Deena Prestegard’s Artful Cranberry wreaths gleamed like a coil of strung rubies as it caught the afternoon light from the kitchen window where it was being packaged for local delivery.
‘Created in Maine’ THIS YEAR, Deena Prestegard set an order limit at 100 wreaths, and added a massive 40-inch wreath to her offerings, which otherwise range from 10 to 26 inches. Each wreath in the series is numbered, and mailed with a card inscribed “Created in Maine just for you.”
Though Prestegard has been making cranberry wreaths for roughly 20 years, living in the Boston area, it wasn’t until she moved to Freeport in 2011 and took a free class for entrepreneurs offered by Women, Work and Community that her seasonal hobby became a business.
Taking WWC class
“‘New Ventures’ is a fairly intensive 12- week course,” said Prestegard, who was among a dozen others in the WWC class that covers the basics of starting a business. “It was a phenomenal experience to be with all these other entrepreneurs and so important to have a community in which to launch.
“One of the requirements for the class was researching other wreath companies, and I couldn’t find anybody else that was selling cranberry wreaths,” she said, though there was a plethora of evergreen wreath home businesses. “So I started to get really excited that I had this niche — about the uniqueness of what I’m doing.”
This year, Prestegard set an order limit at 100 wreaths, and added a massive 40- inch wreath to her offerings, which otherwise range from 10 to 26 inches. Each wreath in the series is numbered, and mailed with a card inscribed “Created in Maine just for you.”
“The wreaths are called Unity, Peace, Goodwill, Joy, Love and Wonder,” said Prestegard. “Sentiments that I hope to spread out to the world at all times, but especially during the holiday season.”
The polished appearance of the finished product belies the labor put into creating the wreaths, each handmade by Prestegard, whose husband, Patrick, helps separate out wreath-quality berries from 100-pound orders and then sorts those berries by size.
“Wonder — the 40-inch wreath — has over 2,500 berries and takes me close to eight hours to make,” said Prestegard. “For every berry that I put on the wreath, I’m touching probably five to 10 other berries to make sure they’re really good.
“What I mean by really good is that there’s no disease, there is no softness to them,” she added. “I’m looking for good, hard berries, the ones that are going to go the distance.”
Each wreath is also adorned with one ceramic berry, which Prestegard handmakes and initials “AC” before she artfully conceals the token among the natural berries.
“I call them ‘pearls’ because unripened berries can be very light in color,” said Prestegard. “It’s a keepsake, and there is a hole in it so it can be strung or used as an ornament.”
Through the years and hours of standing, sorting and assembling, Prestegard said she approaches a zen state when she works and her diligence in searching for the next perfect berry for her wreaths has honed rather than dulled her appreciation of the little red fruit.
“I have come to bond with cranberries — they’re a very spirited fruit,” said Prestegard. “Cranberries are one of only three indigenous fruits in the United States and they have a very short harvesting season.
“I like that aspect of it — that there is a very narrow opportunity here,” she said. “I support initiatives to eat seasonally and buy as locally as possible, and the cranberry wreath is really the poster child for that — you can only get it this time of year, when the cranberries are ready.”
‘Map with pins’
With orders sent to businesses and individuals in Brunswick, Freeport, Falmouth and Westbrook, Prestegard’s local following is growing. Wreaths have also been shipped as far as Montana, Florida and Georgia.
“I have a map with pins of all the places I’ve sent them,” said Prestegard. “It’s a cool thing to think about, that our wreaths are traveling to all these places out there.”
Prestegard has also started a “rewreathing” program, which offers a discount to return customers who send the armature back to Prestegard to be used for a second season. Local customers sometimes drop off armatures at her Freeport home, she said, while customers as far away as Colorado have mailed them in this season.
“I realize a cranberry wreath is not for everybody, and I’m not looking to be a factory or sell a million wreaths,” said Prestegard. “I’d like to see a group of repeat customers for whom having a cranberry wreath has become part of their holiday tradition.”
For more information about Artful Cranberry or to place wreath orders, visit www.artfulcranberry.com.
rgargiulo@timesrecord.com
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