I am currently learning front-end development and have covered HTML and started learning CSS. I understand the individual elements, tags and CSS properties when following examples, but I struggle when I have to start a webpage from a blank file.

I would like to become comfortable creating webpages without following a tutorial step-by-step. What is a good practical approach for practising this? For example, should I choose an existing webpage design and attempt to recreate it from scratch, or is there a better way to structure small projects while learning HTML and CSS?

I am particularly interested in how to practise making decisions about HTML structure, CSS organisation, classes and layout without relying on a tutorial to tell me what to do.