Help customizing in Win7 (total newb alert!)

I'm a total newbie at making a WindowBlinds skin - so let me first off apologize for my ignorance. My OS is Win7 home premium, 64-bit and I have a legally purchased copy of WindowBlinds 8 with Skin Studio.

I have tried modifying, with some degree of success, an Aero theme. I've gotten my taskbar and start orb to the colors I want, but I can't get anything else to set. I attempted to make a skin from scratch using Skin Studio, but I have no idea what I'm doing... and part way through skinning, after I saved my work so far, my UI changed to the old blocky-style classic Windows look, and I couldn't get it back to Aero without cancelling the whole project.

http://www.sirenshadow.com/images/miscellaneous/window_blinds/pic0_desktop.jpg

Also, I have gotten a texture to apply the the start menu right-side panel (the Documents/Music/etc part) once - in WindowBlinds - but after I saved/applied the changes, it was back to the solid color.

http://www.sirenshadow.com/images/miscellaneous/window_blinds/pic1_startmenu.jpg

Aaaand, I'm one of those folks that cannot get the Windows Explorer background color to change. I've tried hex editing manually to no avail, and I know about that program/hack/whatever to change t an image, but I don't want to have to manually edit every single folder.

http://www.sirenshadow.com/images/miscellaneous/window_blinds/pic2_explorer.jpg

So everything in a red box in those pics is something I want to edit. I've edited my registry to assign some icons, but things like new folders don't use my new icon. I can change them individually just fine, though. But how do I edit icons like the homegroup and libraries in the left pane? Or the Program Files, which I have assigned but Windows doesn't change?

http://www.sirenshadow.com/images/miscellaneous/window_blinds/pic3_icons.jpg

That's all (I think... I hope...). Now, I don't want someone to do for me; I want to know how to do it myself. I did try going through a couple tutorials, but for some reason I can't wrap my brain around what I need to do.

I fully understand if no one wants to bother with this, cause its A LOT. Thanks for reading!