I created an account online NOT by using the Microsoft Outlook application. I cannot access my email account

I am going out of my mind trying to figure this out! I went online to Microsoft Live and created an email account in Outlook. Whenever I try to access this email account it says I do not have an account. I created this account in June (while out of the country) and when I returned I couldn't access the account. Since back I simply created the account again, still couldn't access. I need access to this email account because all of the business cards my new employer sent to me has the email address, which I can not access, on them.