Homebrew PCBs

Any suggestions for starting up a little hobby setup for making PCBs?
I was thinking of getting the MG Chemicals 416-K kit. Comes with 3
sensitized copper-clad (single-sided boards), developer, ferric
chloride, foam brushes, rubber gloves. Any reason to not use ferric
chloride, and maybe sodium persulfate instead? I'm thinking of
something economical to make little boards for PIC microcontrollers
and some peripheral circuitry.

And for cheap DIY stuff, what is the smallest package types that are
feasible? Can you do smaller than SOIC? like SSOP or TSSOP?

If you don't know answers but know websites, those are appreciated as
well.

Thanks,
David