This is a little lengthy, so I'll try to make it short but clear. For Mother's Day, I had my hair colored a reddish brown and highlighted at a salon. I absolutely loved it. I've been contiplating on going back but haven't because of the money. My friend offered to help and we chose a color close to my natural color of dark brown and chose a separate highlight kit. I would have been happy with it even though it was too dark. However, being the nice friend that I am, I let her highlight it. After effects are very close section of orange hair on my left side and 1 or 2 on the right that came out tented red. I didn't want to hurt her feelings so when she left, I ran to the store and chose a light brown color and it did help some with the highlight. Now it's dark brown almost black with dark orange highlights. This is what I want to do. Since dark hair does not look good on me, I can only think to strip it to lighten it to a copper color for the highlights, but I'm scared that it will come out more orange. I hope I don't sound confusing but I couldn't see getting an answer without giving the whole story.
Thanks so much!

Dark hair color is difficult to fix by yourself. Please do not attempt to color your hair at home. Go to the salon and have them do a corrective color on you.

Since I wrote, I went for a visit with a friend (who is a beautician) and she washed it twice with Dawn and cut it for me and the colors actually looks better now with a little lift to it. Thank you for the advise. Deep down inside I know that's the solution, but I just didn't want to cough up the money!!