Please review: www.sandsword.com I know it is not that good of a site. But what should I add? If you suggest more graphics, give links to examples of what you are talking about.
In your news section everything blends together; I would put the headers and links in different colours than the text, and I would put the publ, date in a smaller font. Also I think it would be a good idea to put a site logo somewhere to help people rememver sandsword.com. Personally, I don't like the snowflake script, I find it somewhat distracting on a non-kids site.
Er... but what you are trying to build here? Maybe a blog? You can use software like WordPress, Drupal, etc to help you.