Where has the time gone? This is my 100th post, already:
As much as I'd love more practice, I'm just not the best at it. I certainly can do it, but I want everything to look super clean and nice. So I bought an air gun instead of an oven. I'm going to see how well I can use one of those. Wish me luck.
Don't beat yourself up, luck has nothing to do with it.
I bought a Weller WHP3000 a while ago, for casual use you could use a (single) ceran plate for ~25US$.
Order a small SMD stencil with your boards (should go for ~10US$ these days).
Apply solder paste, populate one side.
Put the board on the heating pad of your choice, heat up to 200°C (temperature varies, make a test. Please convert to Fahrenheit, if required.). The solder paste will turn from grey to glossy. Apply additional heat with the air gun, see the paste turn silver. Congratulations - you soldered a board. If done correctly, you will have a hard time telling the process from the result.
To understand what actually goes on, have a look at the SMD-paste's datasheet or at the recommended reflow profiles of the components.
Edit: I recently took some pictures of the process. Maybe they fit in here.
0: setting up the stencil
1: one screen shows the layout, the other the BOM. The tweezers have Teflon tips
2: paste on the board. Note that this doesn't have to be perfect. The key to reflow is the surface tension of the solder in combination with the solder mask
3: placement. Again, not perfect.
4: put on cold heater
5: that process went with a temperature setting of 300°C. The PCB will never see reach that temperature. Reflow happens at 215..230°C.
6: the result. Obvious items would be the off-center LED - they are highly susceptible to crosswinds. Upper middle shows unsoldered pads, where I didn't apply enough hot air.