They're my new favorites as well. I had just bought an hibiscus tree about 2 weeks ago. I keep them in my house until the weather gets really warm. The flowers juist drops of the plant so I just pick up the petals. The stems that the petal blooms from will also drop off on their own or you can dead head where the petal blooms and a new one should grow in it's place.

Forgive me I am new to gardening. What is dead head? Thanks!

Dead head means to cut off the "dead heads" : the old flowers. You can cut off or in some cases, like daylilies, snap them off. The plant looks nicer and it won't set seed. Many plants if allowed to seed will stop flowering because they have accomplished their goal of being fertilized and having offspring. If we, as gardeners, want to see more flowers we have to, er (sounds bad), frustrate them in their goal.

And sometimes the dead flowers look really ugly and it's more for grooming. Plants with attractive seed heads (like alliums) can be allowed to form seeds.

You can cut the flowers off at an angle with bypass shears (in the pruning section of a hardware store or gardening center), you can wait for the flowers to fall, or you can slip the flower off the day after if it hasn't already fallen on it's own. You can save the seeds if you want to. If you cut the flower off, you will not get seeds. The little green part left behind once the flower drops is the ovum where the seeds will form. Take off the little tiny leaves around it, tie netting around it and you can save the seeds! (you can hybridize this way as well if you rub the pollen from another color of flower to another stigma - just keep the seeds and you can plant a whole new hybrid in a few months time!)

do i pinch just the flower or the flower and the base of the flower.

You can pull the flower out of its socket; the plant releases them the day after bloom. I'd let the other stuff yellow and fall off on its own.