Does anyone know of any good primers that show you how to deal with shapes? I have been hobbling together code by recording Macros but I am unable to do a few key things.

I am trying to refer to a specific shape on the sheet that I did not create. Is there someway to pull the shape out of the collection and reference it?

I've tried:

Dude

I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean, but here goes:

If you have a shape called "Button1" on the active sheet and you want to select it, you would go:
ActiveSheet.Shapes("Button1").Select

Other things you might do would include:
ActiveSheet.Shapes("Button1").Width = 35.5
(similar for height, top and left)

You find out the name of the shape by selecting it and looking in the name box just above the column header for Column A (the same place where you see Range names. You can change the names of shapes in there too.

If you enter a standard shape via Insert .. Shapes, it will have a default name like "Rectangle1" or "Isosceles Triangle23". As I mentioned above, you can change these default names, by selecting the object and overtyping the existing name in the Name Box. BUT you have to present <Enter> (not <Return>) to confirm the name; otherwise it won't stick.