Question for lolitas who embroidery with sewing machines

[louis-etoile.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have a Singer futura CE-250 with auto -punch and it hates me in many ways...
I drew a design in pencil, traced it in pen, scanned it, photo-shopped it to make sure it was only two colors  - the the thread color and the background (the original design I did had about five colors but i was having so much trouble with it so I made it simple). Then when I put it through autopunch, it does this color reduction thing and it ruins all the detail in the design and it comes out looking like some kind of blob. Also, every time I use gold thread it says that the thread broke and won't sew even if the thread didn't break...I want to use sparkly thread...why do you hate me sewing machine!? I was having a problem with the needle breaking earlier too. It took me two days to realize I had the embroidery hoop in upside down. lol  I'm a total noob at this.
Any help is VERY much appreciated!