Creating new shapes

this is kind of hard to explain so i hope everyone casn understand what i'm trying to say

My boss wants me to redo a logo from scratch, and i'm not very good with photoshop yet. below is the original image, that i "cleaned" up a little bit, but as i said my boss wants it from scratch.




now, this is what i got done by using two ovals and two lines:


but, my shape isn't a layer because it's different shapes... how do i make this in to a layer? or is there and easier way to do this? because i also want to make the "curved banner" gradient like the first image, but when i do it makes the lines from the stroke really light, but the two lines on the side remain dark and bold. Please Help!

Thank you,

Eric

You can use the Pen tool and create a path that traces over the curves, then just stroke the path and in a seperate layer fill it, then apply a gradient to them.

If you want to merge multiple layers, link them together and press CTRL+E.