Hey,

what about text shadows? It'll allow various new possibilites. It came to my mind, when I saw this information bar thingy in nautilus ( http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2873/example2t.png ).

I did a quick mockup with html. The used CSS for the example is:

#n1 {
text-shadow: #bd8d78 1px 1px 1px;
}
#n2 {
text-shadow: #d2a896 0px 0px 4px;
}

Font rendering locks different, but I think it helps to get the intention.

Hope, you like it. :)