Redesigning for the new year

I've been mulling over the direction I want my blog to go.  While I've been thinking, I started a little redesign...first with a striped background I made, then some new fonts, and a few header.  I thought it would to be fun to show the evolution of my blog headers over the past almost four years.

First, my colours were red and tan.  This image is a photo of a painting we have...it's by Stephen somebody...

Last year, I widened my blog, so I needed a wider header.  It was easier to just make a new one than to try adjusting the size of the old one to just the right dimensions.  This photo is a shot of some of my old books.

A few days ago, I made this one, using Microsoft Paint.  The same program I used for the other headers.  I loved how fresh and bright it was, but did not like the pixelation of the pictures, and the font is not smooth.

 So this morning, I figured out how to do a collage in Picasa, and recreated it.  I think it looks much much better!  But I can't figure out how to make the background white again, instead of the blue/grey it ended up.