They way I managed it is copy and pasting the frame below and putting it into a new mail in hotmail message.  just in the  main message bit ~ it worked!

 

1. Click the Mail tab.
2. Click New to compose a new message.
3. Click Tools, and then click Rich-Text Editor ON. (If the menu says Rich-Text Editor OFF, the Rich-Text Editor is already on.) When the Rich-Text Editor is on, a toolbar appears above the text area.

Note

The Rich Text Editor is only available in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later.

Next,  find the background you want to use.  There's loads at http://groups.msn.com/majikbits   Copy it by going to the end of the background and dragging the cursor over the whole thing to the top left corner so that it is highlighted and then clicking ctrl+c.

Make a new message in hotmail and then paste ( Ctrl+V) the background into the message. If you don't want to save the backgroud just type your message in the middle bit and hit send.

If you do want to save it the best way I have found is to save it to the draft folder in hotmail. Leave the message blank but in the subject line type something that describe the background like 'Green Glitter'. ( don't add anything to the 'To' bit!)   Now click on 'Save draft'.

When you want to use the background again go to the daft email section.  Open up the message you want to use and copy the background ( Ctrl+C).  Then click on new message. Paste the background into the box and your message and send. 

Doing it this way is using your drafts section as you background storage... seems to work rather well!