I started off full time freelancing as web designer last year - my best suggestions from what I have found are:
Like the suggestions above - enter design competitions etc , if you dont get picked - you at least can start building up your portfolio.
Try offering your service free to one user on some of the forums, get good feed back - and work will start to come in, or that person will most likely come back to you with more work - if u kept them happy with your free web site
Build a kick as portfolio site, showing of all you skills.
Ask some of your friends online if they need a website, build it for free - or for the price of a coffee or something - stick your "Web Design By" link in the footer - and see if you can gain leads - a lot of clients don't like having web design links added to there sites - which now I have a steady flow of client work - I offer a small 5% discount to allow me to leave my design link in my work - all advertising is good advertising as far as I'm concerned with web design
And to sum up - there is no quick route really ( as already mentioned before) it took me 2 years working in my spare time ( out side of my full time job ) till i was able to dive in full time as a freelancer.
So stick at it, and best of all with ever design you do you will get better and better
