Photo courtesy of Jennifer DeRuyter A group of Marshall area residents made shamrock decorations for St. Patrick’s Day at the Marshall Adult Community Center.

MARSHALL — Even though St. Patrick’s Day is still a few weeks away, a group of Marshall area residents spent Wednesday preparing for the Irish-themed celebration by making shamrock decorations.

On Wednesday morning, the “Creative Connections” group met at the Marshall Adult Community Center for a St. Patrick’s Day-themed craft. Creative Connections is a relatively new program at the MACC. The group meets on the second Wednesday of the month for different craft projects, said Jennifer DeRuyter, program specialist at the MACC.

“We get together and make something,” Marshall resident Joyce Greeley said. “We’ve made lots of different things.”

She said past projects for the group have included making gnomes, heart decorations for Valentine’s Day, and projects like crochet and paper curling.

Greeley and DeRuyter said anywhere from a few people to around a dozen have attended the Creative Connections events. DeRuyter said it was a chance for the MACC to offer some new and different programs, in addition to events like the educational talks and card game gatherings the center holds.

“It gets us together in a different atmosphere,” Greeley said. “We help each other, and we laugh a lot.”

For the St. Patrick’s Day shamrocks, crafters used different materials like paint and fabric, and got creative to make their own decorations. Greeley said she wasn’t skilled at tying bows, but she improvised by adding extra ribbons to a bow on the front of her shamrock.

Greeley said crafters have also teamed up with children from True Light Christian School for some of their past projects. It was fun to work with the students on crafts like making holiday bells, she said.

“They’re very honest,” she said.

The students were straightforward in saying how they thought the projects should be decorated.