i just tried esper's diamond flower tutorial and for that i had to finally get the shape paths and clone layer plugins to work - i've been putting that off for so long because i knew it would take some work and work is a dirty word. well, i did it and the clone layers tool was so much fun to play around with i couldn't stop. i combined my clone layers experimenting with some other experiments inspired by akky's quest in this thread: akky's ornament quest (btw, akky, how is that going on? are you getting anywhere?). the results turned out lovely, like this:

Exquisite! I'll take two dozen pleeze.

Very cool, AnMal.

It's a colorful, abstract design, with nice symmetry and depth.

very nice, AnMal !

the only thing i think is missing are some leafs underneath the flower, to fill the empty space between the purple petals

Actually, it looks more like a piece of jewelry, such as medallion or a pendant, than a flower.

aw, nice work, really

really nice

Very nice colors and pattern! It looks like a lot of work with all that detail!

thanks, everyone for your comments!

draconian: if you give them to your new great granddaughter i might actually bother to make them .
esper: i could try making leaves just for the fun of it but i actually like those empty spaces.
GnuTux: that's part of the idea . i love jewellery and make jewellery for real, so my ambition is to one day make passable gimp jewellery.
gms9810: thank you!
he4rty: thanks!
2-ton: it was actually not that bad. the clone layer tool did most of the tedious work, i could concentrate on the fun stuff. knotwork and paisley making is a lot harder .

haha, yes the CloneLayer Tool is great fun, i think so too
and you can do other cool stuff, like duplicating, moving and shrinking at the same time
for instance the trunk of a palmtree, when you do that with a trapezoid

experimenting with that is on my to do list

very nice flower Anmal

photo comix: thank you! it's nice and symmetric

That is sooo gorgeous, AnMal.

I personally see it as a velvet abstract flower you'd see on one of those pretty English old-fashioned dresses!
I think it's soooo prettttttyyyy!
I'm with Erisian, I'll take 2 dozen too!

hahahaha, i see what you did there

I'm innocent of all charges!

O: thank you ! i'd be stupid not to be happy with it myself.
mokonafan: aww, thank you moko! that's a really lovely compliment - i love historical clothes and making clothes in general and i think that velvet flower sounds just beautiful. but (i think that's what esper is pointing out) it was draconian who wanted 2 dozens of these, not erisian.

Ahh fail. lol
I got the avatars confused. XD

Lovely result there and exactly the thing I am after...I'll give some more time to it over the weekend when I have more time.