Page~1
F-Keys
The very first thing that needs to be done is to set up your work station. This to me seemed to take the longest but it was well worth it because now if I see a background or gif that I want to use for a border, I'm ready to just grab it and go to work!
Two things that I use freguently to make my BrBgs are
ImageMagick
and
my favorite tools site

Owens4 Tools
I have these both saved on an FKey. It makes thing much easier as you go along.
I always make sure that I have a pencil and notebook handy whenever I'm working on any project, that way I can jot down needed urls instead of going back and forth trying to ccp them. Especially when I go to composite the gif  onto the background at Image Magick.
Web~Space Provider
Hopefully you already have a web site provider and you are familiar with transloading images to your files. If not, you might be jumping ahead of yourself This tutorial will show you how to make ezee~BrBgs, but you do have to have some experience with html and web-page designing.
I use
Angelfire
because I like the fact that they offer you a transloader right there in the webshell.
There are several to choose from including;
Geocities
Tripod
Dreamwater
TalkCity
The WTV-Zone
I do not endorse or denounce any of them. Each person should make their own mind up as to what works best for them.
Resizing
For the purpose of this tutorial I have taken the liberty of resizing the blankbgs for you. They can be found at 
BlankBgs

I've also put Owens4Tools background tester on the page just in case you want to check out the bg color.
The blanks are sized to width=640 and height=113. Feel free to resize them to your own taste but remember the height because this will be a very important bit of information when it comes time to put the BrBg together. I'll explain this in further detail in the next segment about the gif or Bgtile that you will be using for your BrBg. Here is a
printable version
of this tutorial.
continued

on next page.~~~~>