By late October the afternoons have that soft, grey quality that makes the garden feel as though it is winding down. The leaves are down, the light is low, and there is a fair chance of rain. It is exactly the sort of weather that sends everyone indoors — and exactly the sort of weather that makes an hour at the kitchen table with a pile of leaves and twigs feel like the best possible use of an afternoon.

Start With A Twenty-Minute Forage

You do not need a wood to gather decent material. A verge, a park, a pavement lined with lime trees or a hedge along a footpath will do. Take a cotton bag or a shallow box, and go out with the intention of noticing rather than collecting. Children are brilliant at this when you give them a job: find me five different leaf shapes, or three things that rattle.

• Leaves: oak, beech, sycamore, lime and field maple all hold their shape well. Look for dry leaves with clear veins rather than soggy ones.
• Twigs: straightish sticks about 15–20cm long are the most useful. Fresh hazel, birch and ash bend without snapping.
• Seeds and cases: sycamore "helicopters", ash keys, acorns, sweet chestnut cases, pine cones, poppy heads.
• Seed heads: honesty pods, teasel heads, old sunflower centres and the papery remains of alliums.
• Conkers: if you find whole ones, take a few spare — they are the single most useful autumn material.

Two rules worth teaching early. Only take what has already fallen, never pull anything off a living plant, and leave everything alone on a nature reserve. And always wash hands afterwards, particularly if anyone has been handling berries you cannot identify — leave those on the bush.

Leaf Rubbings, Pressing And Bunting

Leaf rubbings are the fastest win on a wet afternoon. Use thin paper and a wax crayon laid flat on its side rather than a sharp point. Hold the paper still with one hand and make short strokes across the whole leaf. The veins appear almost immediately, and a dark leaf under white paper gives the strongest result.

For pressing, sandwich leaves between sheets of newspaper, put them under two boards and stack heavy books on top. Leave for two to three weeks. If you need them sooner, an adult can press them with a cool iron for thirty seconds on each side, paper above and below.

Pressed leaves glue beautifully onto triangles cut from a cereal packet. Tape the finished triangles to a length of garden string with masking tape and you have autumn bunting for a window or a shed door.

Twig Stars And Simple Weaving

Choose five sticks of roughly equal length. Lay them in a star shape, overlapping in the middle, and tie each joint firmly with wool or thin twine. Two or three wraps and a tight double knot is plenty. Hang them in a window where the low sun will catch them.

For weaving, find a sturdy Y-shaped twig and wrap string back and forth across the fork to make a rough web. Children can then weave in dried grasses, feathers, thin leaves and strands of wool. Keep the finished piece flat to dry for a day or two before hanging it up.

Printing With Seed Heads And Conkers

Seed heads make excellent stamps. Dip honesty pods, teasel heads or a sunflower centre into poster paint and press firmly onto card or plain paper. The results are irregular and rather beautiful, and they make good homemade wrapping paper for Christmas presents.

Conkers are best threaded with an adult holding the darning needle. Push through the centre, slide onto strong thread or thin string, and keep going until you have a conker snake to hang in a porch. Smaller children can skip the needle and build conker creatures instead, joining conkers, acorns and pine cones with cocktail sticks — mind the sharp ends.

Salt Dough Leaf Prints

This one needs a little forward planning but almost no skill. Mix 200g plain flour, 100g fine salt and about 150ml warm water into a firm dough, then knead it for a minute until smooth. Roll it out to roughly a centimetre thick and press a leaf vein-side down into the surface. Peel the leaf away carefully and the imprint stays behind.

Air dry the prints for two to three days, or bake them on a low heat at around 100°C for two hours. Thread a length of ribbon or garden twine through a corner before drying if you want to hang them. Once cool, paint them or leave them plain and pale.

Setting Up A Rainy Afternoon Craft Table

Half the battle is having everything to hand before anyone sits down. Lay newspaper over the table, put a tray in the middle for the finds, and keep a damp cloth nearby for sticky fingers. A shallow shoebox makes a good "nature box" for storing the week's collection, and small jam jars are ideal for loose seeds.

It is also worth writing the date and the place on a scrap of paper and dropping it in the box. Come February, a pressed beech leaf with "behind the allotments, 19 October" on it is far more interesting than a plain leaf, and children notice the details they would otherwise walk straight past. The craft is really just an excuse to look closely — and autumn is generous enough to make that easy.