I am currently on the learning curve of css web design i have put together my first header for an absolute begginer how is this

http://www.simplelance.com/newdesign/

Works ok the only issue I had was the blue for the stating colour is too bright but not bad for a first effort

It's a pretty good start. I did notice you forgot to close your image tag, but otherwise it's looking good. Not so hard is it?

Where are you learning CSS from? I first got into it from the tutorials at http://www.html.net , but they're pretty simple, and now I'm looking into the tutorials at http://www.w3schools.org which seem more advanced.

You might also consider this new book from SitePoint:
"Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS"
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/html1/

Good start on the page. You need a DOCTYPE in there too in addition to what VanGogh pointed out.

ve been learning using video tutorials and also taking apart a css template got me learning how it was put together and help explain what tag did what to the html.

Taking apart the code of a site is a great way to learn.

Yes, it is. I learned the most by taking apart layouts and CSS from CSSZengarden

My learning actually began reading a couple of Eric Meyer's books over the course of a week or two. Fortunately for me right after that I had a site to do for a friend which I knew wasn't a rush and just began building it using css for everything I knew how. Probably wasn't the best site I ever built, but it worked and didn't use tables for any layout.

After that I mostly looked at the source of every site I liked. The ones that were done in css I spent some time figuring out how they put the page together. I'll still do that when I see something I and wonder how it was done.

Then it was really a lot of practice. Every site I built I tried to learn something new I could incorporate into the next site and a lot of learning came from something not working at all and spending time late a night searching for any kind of answer I could find. Led to a lot of frustrating night, but each new thing I learned has just made the next site that much easier and now my time is often spent thinking about which way will work better as opposed to how can I do this.

I don't consider myself an expert in css. I put it off for quite some time, but have recently been "seeing the light". Something that has helped me is the Web Developer Toolbar Extension in Firefox. By going to a site that has good design that I like, I'm able to view the css file using the toolbar, along with viewing <DIV> elements and alot of other useful information right there on the page while viewing it. It also allows for one to be able to change the css on the fly and view the changes in realtime.

Not suggesting copying sites. Just suggesting that being able to break the site down and view it in code form from within th browser helps me sometimes.

That's my favorite extension. I use it all the time when developing and even when trying to help someone here with their site. After using it I don't think I could ever live without it.

I love that extension and, like Vangogh, I use it a lot to help people here. The other extenstion that helps a lot is HTML Tidy, it highlights validation problems and tells you what's actually wrong.

HTML Tidy is another good one too. I usually use the w3c validator through the developer extension, but I Tidy is a good one too. I just have too many extensions installed and have been trying to cut a few that overlap.