Populating post images

f you look at my site, I have an area named Top Winter Projects in the right-side navigation. I would like to automate this part of the site as I currently have to manually paste HTML into that particular section. What I want to be able to to do is have those images (which should link to the corresponding post) change based on the date.

I’ve tried using the featured image plugin, but that doesn’t seem to work with my theme for some reason. Is there an alternate route?

I’ve tried piecing some code together, but i’m a bit clueless when it comes to php. I’m also not sure how i’d get a picture to show up. Here is what I have, where 40, 50, & 60 are three posts. Can echo calls show pictures?

<? php
$args = array(‘include’ => 40, 50, 60 )
echo get_posts($args);
?>

Here is my site: http://www.merrimentdesign.com

Thanks