Meant to add that about the background and totally forgot. I've used that trick before especially when I've wanted to add some text on the icon and had no luck with the original image and looking just the way I wanted it too.

Art Brush is one of my go to fonts. When I get home I can take a look and see what the others are that I use all the time. Usually I end up trying different fonts until I get it to look just right.

Another trick that I've found with adding text is I don't add it until I've resized the image down to 100x100. If I'm merging 2 images that I'll do at a larger size and than resize to the 100x100.