- If you drop a branch over an kitchen-knife, you get the crafting animation, but nothing happens
You should get an arrow shaft (works here).
- If you got empty crates inside your inventory, so take three of them outside and staple them. Now you may loot the one in the middle.
Please define 'staple'. I tried dropping/moving crates close enough together that they would 'stick' together when moved, but the contents of the middle one were not reset.