Started mining bitcoins since first year in college, mined on college servers, library servers and even room mates laptop. Installed mining nodes on few freelance customers too..
Now its paid off..holding 100,000 bitcoins now...feels good.
Stick with PHP, learn Java script also . These 2 are a good combination. Then move to a CMS like WordPress.Do projects for friends/contact, build portfolio. You could apply for a remote job at http://automattic.com/work-with-us/
I would recommend getting a Teamtreehouse or a tutsplus account to start learning along with a real world mentor. Once she gains a level of understanding , she should focus on establishing a portfolio which can only happen by doing whether for friends or through probono by signing up at sites like catchingfire. once that is done then the next steps would be to sign up at odesk etc ..I guess thats pretty straight forward.