Crafting made easy... Starter Edition

Any item or weapon that can be equipped can be crafted and/or upgraded.

These are the rules set forth for crafting low level items until you are able to create Green Steel items.

Making Bigger Shards

There is a graph at DDOWIKI that shows how many shards you need to create a bigger shard or fragment.
This will come in useful in higher level enchantments or to be sold for a lot of money on the Auction House.

Attunement
If it is not bound to you, you will need to "ATTUNE" it to you through the Stone of Change. You will need the item + item level ^2 in Kyber Dragonshard Fragments (KDF)  (exp: if item is level 6 then you will need 36 KDF for the attunement that will bind it to you. Level 8 item is 64 KDF. Level 12 item is 144 KDF)
This is the first step in being able to upgrade your item. This makes it so that when repaired, it will not take permanent damage. BUT you also can never sell it.

Upgrade and Add bonuses to items and weapons
This is where it gets fun. Once the item is ATTUNED, you can do an upgrade and add more bonuses to your item or weapon. These are minor spells that use COLLECTABLES like vials of water or prayer beads dropped by mobs or found in chests. Go to DDOWIKI to see basic recipes. You can only add one enchantment per item. New enchantments will erase the previous one and they are not stackable. So if you have Power II (+20 SP) and Power I (+10 SP), you will only get the bonus from the higher one.



Summary
In short, at early levels, up to 12 or higher, keep everything dropped as it may be used in enchanting your items and weapons or creating traps and bombs.