Firstly you should leave your house locks alone, if you mess them up or damage them you then have no way of securing your house or in the worst case you may get locked in and in the case of fire thats life threatening.
You should leave the screwdriver in the tool box and the safety pin in your jeans.
Have a look at the comercial sets available and buy a small beginer set to begin with, if you are certain to make some then have a look around the various threads on making them (the search button is your friend).
Look for Digital Blues picking exercise thread then look for Illusions repining a lock thread, both are stickied.
When making picks you are effectively replicating a key so if you make your pick with the key in hand you can judge the sizes if not Illusion has recently posted some templates that you can print out to size and use, if you dont like them there are hundreds of others dotted around site.
Have a look out for Mouse's threads on making picks from wiper inserts and street bristles and theres also a guide to making raimundos bogota rakes/picks on site if you look around.