http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/post-visibility/#sticky-posts

Also I can't seem to figure out how to make my feed just have excerpts instead of the whole post. Thanks!

Please give us the theme name, a link to view the theme, and—most importantly—why you like it and would love to have it on WordPress.com.

Please search the forum first for a suggestion on the same theme. If it exists, add your vote to the same topic and add a note about why you like the theme. http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/how-to-use-the-themes-forum?replies=1

Sir You're a lifesaver...Thank you so much!!!

Post thumbnails are 470 pixels wide, unless you make the post Sticky to show off in the featured slider, in which case they’re 750 pixels wide. Keep in mind: if you mark a post as Sticky but the featured image is less than 750 pixels wide, then it won’t display in the slider and will still disappear from the river of posts.

What I meant was consider that I have 0 sticky posts to begin with. If I mark one post as sticky its still a probability whether it would show up on the slider bar or not.

Its been working with some of my posts while not with others.

for some reason it only accepts posts randomly if I mark them as sticky

Well that's what the theme requires for any post to appear in the slider it must be a "sticky post" and yes the number displayed is limited.

The Showcase Page template offers a featured slider for up to six Sticky Posts.

Oxygen Theme Description http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/oxygen
Live demo site http://oxygendemo.wordpress.com/

I am using the Oxygen theme for my blog, gamingimho.wordpress.com. I created a home page and set my visibility settings to static front page in order to utilize the slider bar for the theme. It is supposed to support upto 6 posts but for some reason it only accepts posts randomly if I mark them as sticky.

I do keep in mind to have only 6 sticky posts at any point of time and I tried to make my most recent post as sticky. But it doesnt work.

Please Advise

Any tips on adding social media buttons?

There are a couple different ways to add social media buttons. Here are a couple past replies that will give you some options and help you get started:

http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/change-social-media-icons-to-customized-ones?replies=5#post-1166398

http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/adding-facebook-twitter-icons?replies=7#post-1170678

Final question for today - any tips on adding social media buttons?

Go to Appearance > Custom Design > CSS in your Dashboard, and paste the following code into the CSS Editor:

.page-template-showcase-php .recent-articles,
.page-template-showcase-php .more-articles {
     display: none;
}
.page-template-showcase-php #tertiary {
    margin: 0;
    width: 100%;
}
.page-template-showcase-php #tertiary .widget {
    float: left;
    margin-right: 5%;
    width: 45%;
}

This will hide the Recent Articles and More Articles sections. It'll also move the right sidebar 2 (currently Twitter and Facebook) into the center, with the widgets positioned into two columns side by side. I wasn't sure if/how you wanted those widgets to appear, so I experimented!

Let me know how this works for you. If you want to hide the Facebook and Twitter widget area, you can replace this:

.page-template-showcase-php .recent-articles,
.page-template-showcase-php .more-articles {
     display: none;
}

in your CSS with this:

.page-template-showcase-php .recent-articles,
.page-template-showcase-php .more-articles,
.page-template-showcase-php #tertiary {
     display: none;
}

I purchased the upgrade and would love some direction as to how to remove the sections. Thank you!

As long as I can remove those sections and possibly add some social media buttons I think I'm okay with this theme. But if there is another you think would work best for a small and relatively new event planning company I'm open to your suggestions.

When I go to buy the upgrade it says:
"Please note, however, that the Custom Design upgrade does not allow direct theme editing or the upload of templates or custom themes."

Will that affect us removing it? Or can I go ahead and buy?

The Custom Design upgrade is not included with premium themes, so you would have to get them separately. If you buy the Custom Design upgrade, you can use it with any theme.

As to whether you should purchase a premium theme -- it's up to you and what you feel will work best for your site.

I have absolutely no experience with CSS and would absolutely appreciate any help you could provide.

1. It's possible to hide those "Recent Articles" and "More articles" sections with CSS, available through the Custom Design upgrade. If you get the upgrade, I'd be happy to help with the CSS.

2. Can you provide a screenshot of what you see when you remove widgets from Sidebar 2? I was unable to repeat this on my test blog, so a screenshot will help me troubleshoot the issue. Thanks!

2) If I leave widget area 2 blank - where the twitter and fb feed are currently located - the entire page distorts and content is moved there from the footer areas. Is there a way to stop this from happening?

PLEASE HELP!

1. Can I make just some posts featured to show up on the front page? How? For example, I might want to highlight selected old posts.

2. In the live preview a random image from the past shows up. Can this be done for seleted posts as well. For example, if I have several posts I want to highlight can only those I want featured be randomly shown every time you load, or would I have to manually select which post I want to be currently highlighted?

3. If the above is not possible in Further, is there any other wordpress.com theme that might serve my needs?

Thanks in advance for any help and ideas :D

In my opinion the way you dealt with it *is* the best way. It sounds like it was an accidental glitch in the underlying code, so the best way to get something like this resolved, is be to let us know about it :)

Thanks!