could someone give me a quick run through of their skinning process 

prefereably someone who uses DNN 4.9.0 ... i recently copied a perfectly working DNN skin file and deleted a few variants from it

the skin is called XDFlower and there are 7 variants of the skin XDFLower01 through XDFlower07

i removed 02-07 leaving XDFlower01.ascx... repackaged via zip ( with the Skins.zip and Containers.zip inside a file called PBred.zip 

upload via the admin interface through the skin menu annnnd the file installs correctly, but when i go to select it form the skin drop down i get this:

No Skin Files Exist In Folder

suggestions?

When you are making new  zip file  structure of files inside the zip file is not proper.

After making changes made zip file with same file structure as it was in original zip file .

There are two methods of creating skins. You can create them in HTML (Which requires an accompanying XML file) When the skin is uploaded and parsed DNN will create a .ascx file, which is what is actually needed for DNN. You can create the ascx file directly, which does not require the XML file (The only reasont an XML file is needed is to specify the properties for the controls that are to be placed in the skin. Controls are the DNN specific features like the login link, the content pane, the search control, etc.  If you use Visual Studio to create the skin, you can specify which controls are included in the skin and the properties for those controls directly from within VS.