As of now I consider my site to be functionally complete. I do not currently anticipate substantial changes to the style or structure of the site. At some point I will post my style in case anyone is interested in using or modifying it for their own site. I would like to acknowledge the people who have provided some of the resources which I have found very useful in this design.
I learned how to do the rounded corner effects with CSS from: Arve Bersvendsen @ virtuelvis.com. Once I understood his code I was able to create the scalloped tab effect for my menu options. Who would have thought that my left-brained self could wax creative like that.
My header image is: “Ripples” by Jeremy Stanley @ www.flickr.com/photos/jpstanley. This image is licensed under a Creative Commons – Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike license. I was thus able to crop it to fit my header. When I share my theme I will include the cropped version and the original version of the image under that same license. All other parts of my theme will be shared under a simple Creative Commons – Attribution license.
I wanted a cohesive color scheme for my site and I found the Color Palette Generator by Steve DeGraeve @ DeGraeve.com. I used my header image to generate the original palette and then used the color picker to generate further colors from that palette. Steve has many other useful programs available on his site as well.