What are the best settings for the canon eos 1000d for close ups

Hello,
I have a canon eos 1000d with canon 18-55mm IS lens, What settings and adjustments do you reccomend for close ups, so if i take a picture of a plant i want the flower to be crystal clear and the backround to be blurred out like macro, i no there is a close up thing, but i want the setting for the best crystal clear picture quality? and whats your best setting fors taking pictures of animals, say a dog and all its coloured detail fur, i want it all to be crystal clear, as i have seen what this camera is capabgle to do, but i dont no what settings are best, i am currently on the fixed settings that where on when i first got it?

set you camera to M(manual). set the camera to the lowest F-stop. aperture 4 or 5 for shallow depth of field. 100 shutter speed would be right. do not forget to set the meter to center weighted metering. do not use matrix metering. there should be light aplenty. and do not forget to set the ISO to 200 or you can go as high as 400.