I've been playing with Fritzing for the last 8 hours, laying out my board, schematic and pcb, and while it lacks a few simple but essential features (such as alignment tools, and finer rotation) its a great little program. I hope it's a project that continues to develop.
The last time I made a PCB it was 26 years ago and it involved UV exposure and gloves up to my armpits 
I am definitely going to have a go with the laser toner method - even the double sided laminator method looks achievable - even for me.
The project I am working on is a simple 32 LED light show which I hope to arrange on a circular PCB. I'm a coder by day and I've created a simple way to describe patterns and timings to display on it, and while it's fairly simple it's also quite complex to layout. I think I will run my own PCB etching until I have a final version and then get some professional boards made so I can make a few for family and friends (or even give them as kits so they get the bug) - if it's not too expensive.
Thanks for the pointers. I'll check out the links now.