Creating woodland elves

Time passes so quickly for adults. But for children it's languorously slow and happily punctuated by birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, sweets and presents.

But I want my children to note the passing of time in an altogether less commercialised way, which means getting out in nature or, at home, with crafts, gardening and a nature table.

So when we go for a walk we stuff our (or rather my) pockets with feathers, stones, interesting leaves, acorns and all manner of natural things. Sometimes it's a job to know what to do with it all but this time we made small woodland people. We think they're elves but they could as easily be sprites.

What you need:

• Strong glue: I used extra strong glue (and didn't let the children near it) and some sticky tack

• Autumn finds: ours included acorns and their caps, leaves, dried cow parlsey, empty beech nut cases and conkers. Teasles and fir cones would be ideal too

• Cocktail sticks or something sharp for making holes.

There is no method to creating these. imagination is everything. Here are a few tips we've gleaned while making ours:

• You will need lots of patience as it's quite fiddly and can go wrong. Equally it is a lovely, slow activity to do, particularly with a child who's recuperating from all the bugs around

• Use what you have rather than trying to make the natural materials bend to your will

• It can be quite tricky getting the figures to stand up so use a blob of sticky tack or plasticine to help.

Once they're made, you could take another trip to the woods to create a woodland home using the base of trees and leave your little elves and sprites there. Or you could set up a nature table or shelf and celebrate the changing seasons.

There's lots of fun to be had using natural materials including this craft using acorn caps or this pine cone wreath. Whatever you make, bringing nature inside and noting the changing seasons is a lovely way to slow down your fast-paced days too,