Here is how i did to get up and running, creating Debian .deb files, from upstream source .tar.gz files.

Firstly, install the required software :
apt-get install fakeroot dh-make

Then i created a folder where i would be doing my .deb files like ~/Code/DebWorkspace

Got myself something i wanted to build, namely f-spot-0.8.2.tar.gz, then i unpacked it
tar zxf f-spot-0.8.2.tar.gz
Moved the .tar.gz file to a orig.tar.gz file cp f-spot-0.8.2.tar.gz f-spot_0.8.2.orig.tar.gz

Entering the unpacked folder, then ran: dh_make -s

Hopefully that went well, then you will just have to run dpkg-buildpackage, and now with f-spot i had to disable testing for it to compile.. so i did DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=nocheck dpkg-buildpackage -ksmurfd@smurfd.info

there, now in your ~/Code/DebWorkspace you should have the following f-spot related files .. ls -p|grep f-spot
f-spot-0.8.2/
f-spot_0.8.2-1_amd64.changes
f-spot_0.8.2-1_amd64.deb
f-spot_0.8.2-1.debian.tar.gz
f-spot_0.8.2-1.dsc
f-spot_0.8.2.orig.tar.gz
f-spot-0.8.2.tar.gz

Now, if you would like to add some extra or remove some parameters from ./configure you should edit debian/rules file originally it may look like

%:
dh $@
and its a TAB before the dh line.
Then, if you wanted some configure options you make it look like :

%:
dh $@
override_dh_auto_configure:
dh_auto_configure -- --enable-bla --disable-bla2 --with-something=woohoo

Got this working from the following links
Making Packages
Debian forums FAQ

Next time i will add howto get PGP signing with the packages up and running.