I've created a custom master page which does not display the "add" or "cancel" buttons when adding web parts to the page. These elements are controlled by CSS tags such as: .ms-wpadder, .ms-wpadder-cell, .ms-wpadder-buttonArea, .ms-wpadder-zoneArea, #s4-ribbonrow among others. I have attached a screenshot on my SkyDrive account
SharePoint Master Page Screenshot
which displays the web part objects but not the buttons to add them to your page. The cells of the #s4-ribbonrow are red .ms-wpadder-cell have been colored orange for display purposes. Here is some code I am experimenting with to solve the problem
#s4-ribbonrow{background-color:red !important; padding-bottom:50px !important;min-height: 43px; max-height:200px; overflow-y: hidden;}
.ms-wpadder-buttonArea .ms-wpadder-zoneArea{padding-bottom:50px; background-color:aqua;}
.ms-wpadder-cell{min-height:220px !important; background-color:orange;}
.ms-wpadder{padding-bottom:50px !important;}
#RibbonContainer{background-color:transparent;}
body #s4-ribboncont{background-image:none; padding-top:150px;}
Alex Dove - MA, MCP, SharePoint certified developer