New to sql database

I am working on a web appointment managing program for a friend. It does not need to be high performance, but I figured I'd dabble in SQL DB in order to implement what I learn in future projects. I am developing c# in visual studio .net and so I downloaded msde thinking that I could create a database using vs.net and build tables using it. Does anyone have the info on creating sql databases? I have not found a detailed source on the web and I certainly don't want to go back to Access programming. thanks for advice, Eli