No need to hack, when you can get the CSS to do the work.

example selector for the stylesheet;

Code:
#siteinfoLegal, .legalCopyright {
      text-align: left;
      line-height: 3.5em;
      background-image: url(../images/yourfooter.jpg);
      background-color: #ffffff;
      height: 38px;
      }
It's all about finding the selectors responsible for that area and assigning a declaration for a background image.