So, Crafting...

[Frizze]

Leveling crafting takes an investment. You can either invest time and level cheaply, or you can invest gil and level more quickly. Is it hard to do? Certain recipes at certain levels with certain equipment can definitely be hard, but the overall process isnt that bad. First of all, figure out if you like the crafting minigame. If making things ends up feeling painful or tedious then it probly isnt worth the greater investment. You seem interested in glamour prisms and i see you have RDM listed as a class. So why not start by leveling weaver a little? They would make the prisms for a lot of your gear afterall.

So go to the weaver guild in Ul Dah and meet Redolent Rose(or whatever his name is). Join the guild and unlock the class. Next to the receptionist is a "guild supplier". This NPC sells all(or almost all) the materials you need to make recipes up to roughly level 15. Open your recipe book and try to make each recipe once. Most people can level up to 15 in around an hour, and that makes a good goal for your first session(stopping to do the class quests at 5 and 10 will also give you some more gear to use). This should give you a taste of crafting. If you dont like it, it likely wont get better for you and youve now reached a good point to stop. If you do like it youve reached an important milestone - level 15 is where you get your first cross class skills for crafting.

It is entirely possible to only level the crafting classes you like, but by not having the right skills to use the process becomes a lot harder and more luck dependent. So basically everyone will tell you to level everything up at least until you get the important skills. Every class gets a useful skill at 15(though some are better then others), so spending 45-60 mins at each guild(like you just did with weaver) is an easy enough project to start with. The next set of CC skills comes at level 37, and only Culinarian has one that is useful right away. The "powerful" CC skills come at 50, with almost all of them being great in their own way. The final set of CC skills are at 54, and those are a special batch(each of them in its own way is aimed at making it easier to finish super long recipes, in the end the GSM and CUL are the ones actually used most often). Level 50 is where the prism recipes are, so getting all the classes that far means you could make all of the prisms you need plus have the CC skills you want to make a go at HQ gear to use/sell.

So all of this sounds like a lot of work. This is where i echo back to what the previous respondents have said. Once you do your level 15 romp at the crafting guilds, its time to look at your leveling options. If you havent already, unlock the Ixali beast tribe right away. Doing the pre-quests to work with the moogles is also a good idea. You will be able to do up to 12 ixali quests a day at high faction levels, and this tribe is an excellent way to level your classes up to 50(beyond 50 it doesnt give meaningful exp). The quests provide the materials you need, and if you mess up you can just ask them to give you more(as many times as needed). You get exp for the crafting class you turn the quest items in with, so if one of your classes gets ahead you can use it to more easily make everything, then turn the stuff in on the class needing the exp. The moogles are the same(though they have a 3/6 quest per day limit), but for leveling from 50-60(again, no meaninful exp after that). In addition to the tribes you want to do your GC turnins when you can, and you can always do some leves(and after level 50 collectables) to supplement your leveling needs. And finally, if you take the full crafting plunge then spending a bit of time leveling the gathering roles will save you millions upon millions of gil in the long run.