If you never played with NFV before, try OpenStack.
For the basic OpenStack sandbox in the cloud you may use TryStack - http://trystack.org/.
Packstack is a tool to install small OpenStack environment (on VM) with CentOS, Fedora, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Conjure-up is a tool to install small OpenStack environment in LXD containers on Ubuntu.
When you tried some of the above and want to go deeper under the hood, try Devstack. It is easy to install, but configuration requires a clear view on how OpenStack works, how the components interacts, how your changes affect these interactions. Its real value in variety of plugins and tools for OpenStack developers - you need to understand how they work. For experiments with NFV you might try Tacker - "an OpenStack service for NFV Orchestration with a general purpose VNF Manager" - as Devstack plugin.
For the SDN-related things please check SDN getting started books on this website.
If you have prior practical experience in both OpenStack and cloud networking, consider one of OPNFV distributions, which integrates OpenStack, SDN controllers, Ceph Storage, KVM, Open vSwitch, Linux, etc. You will need at least one dedicated physical server. A laptop lab deployment (in VMware Workstation or Oracle VirtualBox) is possible for a very limited set of use cases, but requires a lot of expertise in OpenStack, in relevant SDN solutions, in virtualization and advanced hardware. I would NOT recommend trying OPNFV lab on a laptop if you just starting with NFV and value your time.
Any OPNFV distribution will consume a lot of your time even if you have prior experience with the relevant OpenStack and SDN distros.