Cruise the web and download anything which may be of use into your website/temp directory. That way, you'll know why you collected it & where it is. Also, take note of any link-back requirements. It's easiest to bookmark any places you take material from so that you can go back & check their link-back requirements when & if you decide to use their material. A link-back is where in exchange for free use of someone's material, you give them a credit usually in the form of their logo, and link back to their site from yours. It's only fair, considering the hours that they put in to create the stuff and you're getting it for nix. And it's good karma.

You DO know how to copy stuff off the web into your local drive, right? For graphics, right-click and "save image as" or "save background as", then select the right local directory (the temp one you created earlier) and that's it. One word of warning - never "save link as" - basically, you're stealing their bandwidth by serving from their site rather than keeping the graphic on your own site.

Saving fonts depends on the font site - some download zip files, which will end up wherever you've set your zip files to go. Write down the font's file name - you might need to search for it later. Once it's on your local drive (wherever) you then need to install it. On Win95, 98, 2000 etc that's in settings > control panel > fonts > install new fonts. You'll work it out, I'm sure. Having hundreds of fonts installed will slow down your system - especially if they're the dingbats (clip-art) type ones with huge file sizes. Usually a font site will tell you the file size & I avoid downloading any over about 100K.

Animated gifs are fun to make, but can be a bit distracting. It depends on the purpose and audience of your site, you may be able to find something appropriate. You can make your own, but get your site built first.

There are graphics books/CDs which are "copyright free" such as the excellent Dover collections (see the Amazon ad to the left). These are a great inexpensive source of content if you're short of your own.

Once you've collected both your own content and free stuff from the web, you're ready to get technical.