Ok... I've never done this before.
So how do I get a mesh into the circular/rectangular shape I want?
You don't need a round mesh as long as it's transparent. I recommend experimenting with http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope. It allows you to attach a (new) texture to a mesh. You will likely also want to make sure that the area surrounding the image itself is transparent.
For links to various utilities that might come in handy see http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/?p=modding_data/utils.
EDIT - the textures are not part of the mesh. They are stored separately, in the 'textures' folder. You can check which textures a mesh uses by opening it in NifSkope. Irfanview will allow you to open DDS files (if you have the plugins installed, that is).