Well, one option would be to make the initial size small and then offset all drawing in x and y by HILDON_ICON_PIXEL_SIZE_FINGER. This should, I think, place the settings button and close button to the left and above, respectively, of the content. Which would hopefully also have the advantage of keeping them in the same position regardless of the widget size.

Course, this is a hack and assumes a lot about how hildon-home chooses the position for the buttons.