Ok, so i don't really know exactly how to say what i need so i will just explain what i want. I want to have a set background and then on top of that background another background with a set height and width. An example is http://snowboarding.transworld.net/ . I don't think it would work if i made a background with two images and then just put everything on my website centered on the top image of the background. Doing that would probably make it hard to place things around.

Side note....i know enough about html to code my own basic page and to edit code but i use Dreamweaver. i'm also learning javascript.

I don't understand what I should look at on that page.

ok sorry i wasn't clear on that. That website has the picture of snow as the background. Then on top of that centered is a white background. Everything(links, writing, pictures, etc.) are set on that white background.

Is that a little more clear? sorry i don't know how to really say what i want.

That thin stripe at the top? That's no problem. With CSS you can have a background on every element on the page if you wish.

But that isn't needed to mimic that page. You could for example use the snows stripe as a background for BODY and make it tile only horizontally. Then give BODY a top padding to move the content down and show the background.

http://htmlhelp.com/reference/css/color-background/

You may want to start here if you haven't used CSS before.
http://htmlhelp.com/reference/css/

Forgot one bit. You also need to wrap the content in a DIV and set its background color to white.

Alternatively you can have a white background color for BODY and put a DIV with a fixed hight at the top of the page and use the background image for that.

Sorry. I type before I think sometimes.

Actually, if you expand your browser window, you'll see that the background image is more more complex than that. It's actually 2000px wide by 1150px high, and includes the snow pattern on both sides, as well as a thin strip across the top.

But pandy's advice is sound. All you really need is a tiling snow-pattern background image for the body element, with the content in a div element that features a white background.

Afraid you overestimate me and my crappy old screen... I can only see the stripe at the top. I should have realized there was more to it.