Background image? Z-Index?

[Bonus]

I have a template that I'm trying to customize. It has a left sidebanner div and image.

How do I get text to appear on top of the image? By making the image a background-image in CSS? By specifying z-index?

Your help is GREATLY appreciated

[hrethan]

Making the image a background image is probably the easiest thing to do. Use CSS to do something like

<div style="background-image: url(path/to/image.jpg);">
...
</div>

Your image may not be the same size as your DIV, so some spacing issues may appear. You may need to use the CSS background-repeat property. Check out:
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_background.asp