help for a newbie please

Hi
I am relatively new to drupal, so please put up with my silly questions
I have been getting my head around this drupal theme, which is very good.
I have two points.

1. I want to put a background image onto the site. i want the image only to show at the sides of the page and show all the way down to the bottom of the page.

2. how do I put a shortcut at the top right of the screen. for instance i want to put the word cart to go to my /cart webpage. But i want this to go above the menu and inline with the logo.

thank you for all your antisipated help

belial