Graphics: New Blog Button?

I've been having a lot of fun with some new freeware software that I downloaded yesterday, and this morning I created this banner:

... and here's a button that I made by cropping a section of the banner:

The software is called Paint.Net and is available to download for free here. It is super cool!!! If you enjoy tinkering around with graphics and can't afford (don't need) something as sophisticated as Photoshop then this is ideal. I regularly use MS Paint to make my headers and buttons but this is much better.

There is a useful HELP forum online with plenty of tutorials to get you started. Paint.Net is still warm in my hands so I haven't done much with it yet. But it's been fun so far. I'll brag let you know how I get on with it.