Whether you do a horizontal or vertical navigation bar depends on what you're trying to accomplish and what your layout looks like. If you're having trouble, I'd suggest doing the entire layout and then deciding on the navigation.
For something simple that looks professional and takes almost no effort, try what I used to do before I discovered the magic of photoshop. Let me make a quick mockup in paint..
Click to view attachmentIt's pretty obvious what I did, just made some really simple boxes with two borders around each one. Too simple? You could add rollover effects.
That may not, however, really fit into some really graphic intensive layouts. Gradients and bevel/emboss are options you should become familiar with if you have an image editing program such as photoshop, and reading up on some navigation tutorials will help you get started.