Either you have crafting ticks, or you don't.
Click on the strategus action menu, on the next page look under your Gold, and you Action and you will see how many Strategus Ticks you have left, if you have some ticks (1 used every hour, on the hour) then you are able to recruit and craft.
If you click on craft, you will start crafting. If you click on craft, and then without clicking submit, click on "select" for what you want to craft, it moves you back to what you were doing (begging). So first select what you want to craft, and then select that you want to craft. Pretty easy stuff here.
