This New Template Thing

Well, I had gotten bored with the same 10 or so "manufactured" blog templates and so I decided to go on the internet to try and find some other ones. I have seen so many of our friends' blogs with very cute and very "them" kind of backgrounds like they created them themselves-and well I certainly wish I knew how they did it or where they got it...because I spent hours yesterday just trying to hope I hadn't erased my entire blog when it came up blank and nothing would come up...but then I got the hang of where to put the right "html" code and all that other jazz but now the NEW Flickr badge that I had created (since I accidentally erased the old one off my blog this morning) now no longer even appears with this new template. Also the links I had listed for other friends' blogs and things wouldn't show up either so I finally found a help site that answered how to get them to show up, BUT now they aren't really links, they're just words of the sites that I wanted links to (because they don't go anywhere when you click on them). If anyone feels my plight and knows how to fix my mistakes PLEASE comment or email me back some answers.