I tried this SMD soldering kit and it was pretty fun and definitely got my confidence up to do SMD. There's a world of difference between the big sizes and the small sizes. 1206, 0805 are easy with a good soldering iron. Smaller ones too weren't bad. The SOIC package chips are also pretty easy. I don't the confidence to do much smaller than that like the QFP chips but that's not really come up in my low-end hobby work.
Fine tweezers, magnifying class, and a beer before soldering all help a lot.
you can get soldering practice boards, too. Here's one from Amazon but there's tons of choices. Better to screw up first on a part that doesn't matter.
e and don't forget the jewler's tweezers (#5) and a 3rd hand / PCB holder is always nice too