ross246:
It came with the arduino boot loader installed. I also loaded the boot loader using an Uno and the Arduino IDE just to be sure. I can program my circuit using the ftdi functionality on the arduino uno just not using the FTDI cable. Will try rip apart the circuit again and rebuild it
Well I;m somewhat confused, it came with a bootloader already installed on the chip, but then you burned a bootloader onto it anyway? What board type had you selected prior to performing the burn bootloader step?
You say it's running a blink sketch? How did you load the blink sketch to the chip? if you used the load sketch using programmer option that will erase any bootloader that may have been on the chip?