I'm in no way expert at this, but I may be able to help you!

1st - you can click on your layer and change it to layer 0 so you can move it around.
OR you can duplicate it and then you can move it around and move photos beneath it.

As far as your page template being HUGE, do you have everything the same resolution?

If your new blank page is 72 dpi (the PSE default), your template is probably 300 dpi and thus IS huge in comparisom. If that is the case, you will just need to change the resolution of your new page.

HTH!