I tend to be into more minimalistic design, myself...lots of white space...dotted lines and the like. You just have to find a style that appeals to you and figure out why it appeals to you...same thing when looking at sites you admire. Take ideas without directly copying.

You could even set up your own blog (finding a blog package for whatever programming platform your host provides or use blogger.com). This way you can keep everyone up on updates, have your gallery and present tutorials fairly easily, use their css templates (or make your own). There's a quite a bit too learn to get the control you want for building a complex site but the info is so readily available (especially being able to view source...which is really great when you start looking at others' style sheets.)

Just keep at it...like anything else, it takes time but it'll come around eventually.