this didn't turn out the way i wanted it where did i go wrong?

What did you want to do?

lucy doesn't stand out like i want her to

can you be more specific?

that pic would be a good one to work on the tuts for removing background from fine hair strands.

I agree.
You can try duplicating the image and go to colors/invert and set the top layer to (i think divide).
If you are trying to make the colors stand out.
If you are going for a Sepia tone of color, try the Sepia plugin available on the registry.
http://registry.gimp.org/node/17159.

Or if you just want the lines or edges to stand out try the Filters/edges filters already available with Gimp-2.6.11.
Just duplicate your image and run one of the filters on the top layer and play with the layer modes and see what you get.

There is also sharpening tools available under Filters/Enhance.