Is ebaying a hobby?

[Rosalie]

I love getting onto ebay.
Whenever I need to make a purchase I have a look to see whats available.
I have brought a full tv series -star trek for Christmas for Campbell last year. It was really cheap. This year I bought Hilary a base guitar and amp. The new price was such that I could never have afforded it.

My most recent purchase is a new 35mm SLR camera for Hilary. She is studying photograpy at school and had been getting by on my ancient 45 yr old SLR. The one I bought is a 4 yr old Pentax that was $1000.00 new. It is hardly used and I got it for $192.00..it has all the bells and whistles and she is very excited. It should arrive next week.
I have bought school books and university books from here and overseas with never a problem.
Any how, I was wondering if anyone else uses ebay? I consider it a "Hobby" because I can save money and have fun at the same time.

[dancemomof2]

Nope for me it's an addiction. I buy weekly from Ebay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SharonA]

I don't know if it is a hobby for me but I sure spend a lot of time shopping there. :) :) :)

[Rosalie]

If you spend your "Leisure" time on ebay...then it IS a hobby.LOL
And what better...than to be able to turn you hobbies into something that is financially beneficial?
Why ! it should almost be made compulsory! Hahaaaha!

[dancemomof2]

then I guess mine is a hobby!!!!!!!!!

[Rosalie]

What has been your best/favourite purchase Leslie?

[dg2901]

I used ebay for a while a few years ago. Ran into a bad seller once and thats all it took for me to stop participating. I have just recently, within the last couple of weeks, started buying again. I just recently bought several bags of coffee discs for my beverage maker, and a couple of decorations for my kitchen.

[MarthaB]

:) yes Diana, that's my main worry, running into a bad seller, I see lots of stuff I would like to buy, but something always stops me, I surpose I should just have a go at it, and maybe buy something cheap first, so if it is a bad seller I don't lose to much money,
Martha

[Rosalie]

Sooooooooooooooo..............There you are Martha! I thought you might have been at the cricket!

When you find something you want to buy on ebay, check out the sellers details on the box on the right of the screen. It will show you comments form their buyers.This give you some indication of their reliability.

[MarthaB]

:) Thanks Rosalie, If I remember correctly you mentioned something about pay pal, have to see how that works first.
Tim had to put in a new hard drive and reformat the computer.
I've been to the dr yesterday morning, and asked for a referal for my uro, but he wants me to try something else first , ( sorry to get of track here) he asked if I tried ural before and I told him yes but never again, because it gave me major burning, the stuff he gave me is called Hiprex a urinary tract antibacterial, I swear all these meds are sending me to the poorhouse, ggrrr., sorry I forget sometimes that I am on a craft thread.
Martha :)

[Rosalie]

Martha, the paypal is a system where you register your credit card details and when you want to pay for something using paypal it automatically put the transaction through for you. You have to have a user name and password that is seperate to the ebay details.
Some sellers in Australia use the direct payment method where they give you their bank account details. I have used both and never had any problems.
Drs are always wanting you to try something new. I swear that its so they can get you back for another fee just to see how its going!

[MarthaB]

:) that's so very very true, that'll be $45.00, thank you very much, see you next time, ggrrr.
Martha :)

[Rosalie]

I love your new avatar Martha...Very Cheeky!

[Rosalie]

:woohoo: Hilarys camera arrived. The seller was very slow in sending it and I was starting to get worried. I paid her the day I won the auction but she didn't send it for three weeks! I don't like to leave a negative response but feel I should say something...I will have to think about it.

Anyhoo, the camera is fantastic. I had to buy some black and white film so Hillz can develop it herself at school but she can't wait to get clicking again.

This camera will take a bit of getting used to as it has soooo many functions...even a motor drive! Oops I keep forgetting its not MY camera.

[MarthaB]

:) I'm glad you got it, I was wondering because you didn't mention anything about it anymore, about the feed back to the seller, perhaps you could put in something like,'' great camera, blah blah , but posting a bit too slow,'' that way you don't really offend anybody, I think we as buyers really rely on the feed backs, so this way we know that this particular person does deliver, but is a bit slow.
Martha :)

[Trac348]

You can leave a positive but put something like "a little slow with shipping, but item was just as described" Over all experience a B+. That way it kind of lets others know what to expect. I LOVE EBAY. I have only had one seller that did not send me the book I ordered. I turned it over to paypal (how I paid) It took them about a month and a half and I got my money back.

My favorite Purchase, I have to tell this story.
My daughter since she was 5,she is now 9, wanted this doll. We called it the gymnastics doll her real name is Susie or something like that. Anyway, they did not make it anymore I had looked everywhere. This year at a consignment sale she found one and another child had bought it before we got there. She was so disappointed. She tried to tell me that’s okay it was 10 dollars anyway. I felt so bad I got on eBay as a last resort. They had 1. I paid more than 10 dollars for it, but they look on her face Christmas morning that "Santa" made one just for her. It was something I will always remember.

[SandyRN]

Ebay...did you say EBAY? My heart beats funny hearing and thinking all things EBAY....lol. I love ebay and can really sit here ALL day long browsing and shop. I bought a fabulous FOSSIL watch for my oldest son for Christmas. It's listed as 105.00 watch, and, including shipping, I got it for 55.00! I was tickled...it came quickly and was gorgeous! I bought several things from Ebay and Amazon.com over Christmas, and just recently bought some jewelry on Amazon through one of their merchant sellers. Gorgeous sterling silver jewelry!!

So far I havent had a bad experience. They really mean it when they tell you you can buy ANYTHING on Ebay....There are varieties from tampons to trailers, rings, clothing, knik knaks, housewears, my FAVORITE philosophy line of shampoos, etc...

Yup...love it!

:) Sandy

[Rosalie]

Trac, I love your story. Santa is a very determined one isn't she? And i have wondered what would happen if ever a purchase didn't arrive. Its good to know that you can go to paypal to sort it out.
I wish Amazon would organize an Aussie site with stock held in Oz. I look there and find lots of stuff but it is all quoted in US dollars and the exchange rate is such that they become just too expensive with the added cost of overseas delivery.

Sandy, I find that I always check ebay now before buying anything. Have you ever seen the toasts that look like celebrities? Hahhaaahahaa That really makes me laugh!
Someone had even put on a golfball used by my nephew (a golf pro)...boy did we give him larry doodle about it on Christmas Day...Claaaaaaaaaaims he knew nothing about it!LOL

[Rosalie]

:woohoo: I just bought a McKenzie tartan Kilt on ebay for my son. We are having a 21st party for him in July and he wants it to be a 'no pants party'

I've paid $AU89.00 for it. $30.00 of which was postage from England. Not bad I reckon as it was going to cost $AU175.00 just to hire or $AU600.00 to have one made! Ebay is the best! Well having said that, I still have to get it and make sure it is OK but I haven't had a bad transaction yet...touch wood!

[dg2901]

I just recently got finished battling with a seller on Ebay...ugggh!!.. it took over a month to settle. She tried to change the auction (the number of items i had bid on)after I had already won. Of course I refused to pay for anything more than what I had bid on-this didnt seem to sink in to her thick head so she kept harrassing me via email about paying the difference. Nevermind that I had a copy of the original auction and my winning email..stupid woman! Finally she credited back the money she had been paid to my PayPal account and I havent heard anything else from her--i would say over a month's worth of arguing via email is enough from one person!..oy!

Anyway..haha..good buy Ro'! Hopefully you'll get it and it'll all be good. And I'm assuming guys dont wear anything underneat them?..haha..I thought that was a joke.... :hmm:
I have a picture of a bagpiper on my Flickr page--now i'm wondering if the only between me and him was that kilt...????....... :bow:

[Rosalie]

Oh No! D, underwear is COMPULSORY! No freeballing at this party!
Some are coming in togas, one guy is coming asTom Cruise in 'Risky Business' a la Tshirt and boxers. One ingenious little buggar is coming as a carrot!
I'm hoping that all my brothers and nephews will wear kilts. My maiden name was McKenzie and even though we are sixth generation Aussies, the Scots heritage still comes out.
I'll surely have the camera out that night!

[Rosalie]

I haven't told Campbell about the kilt, I want to surprise him. I'll still have to sew the dress jacket and find a sporran somewhere...back to the old ebay drawingboard!

Oh No! D, underwear is COMPULSORY! No freeballing at this party!
Some are coming in togas, one guy is coming asTom Cruise in 'Risky Business' a la Tshirt and boxers. One ingenious little buggar is coming as a carrot!
I'm hoping that all my brothers and nephews will wear kilts. My maiden name was McKenzie and even though we are sixth generation Aussies, the Scots heritage still comes out.
I'll surely have the camera out that night!

[dancemomof2]

LOL Ebay is my home away from home. My dad has all the sudden decided to collect the crown royal glasses that come out as Xmas time. I have been able to get most of them for only 99 cents. Not a IC friendly item for me to buy :biglaugh:

Hubby used to get so angry with me for being on ebay all the time now we fight for the computer to go there.

[Rosalie]

Well, the kilt arrived within a week and it lookes great on him. Its a little big but I can alter that. Its better than being too small and the next size down would have been just that. You could only get them in two inch increments. Och aye the noo!

[dg2901]

Yay for the safe arrival of the kilt! Cant wait til the party--are we invited, by the way?
And please please please put that new camera to use...pretty please!

Ciao' y'all!
diana

[trytosmile]

Ebay, did somebody say Ebay ....

My hubby has got me into it. He purchases used snowmobile parts for the vintage sleds he rebuilds.

Me, quilt products. I've got the coolest quilt kits off ebay. Just got one in the mail yesterday and I'm anxious to get it started. I'll put it beside the other dozen I have on the go...lol.

I've only had one bad experience with ebay. I had purchased a quilt book, it hadn't arrived so I emailed the seller to find out what had happend. Turns out she emailed my purchase to another person. When she contacted the other person about the error that person didn't respond. Her solution was she bought a new book and sent to me. Well I finally got the book and it was a mess, pages torn out of it, binding was weak. I wldn't have paid a quarter for the book it was in such bad shape. So I emailed the seller back again and explained the situation. I ended up having to send the book back and she refunded the money. I was totally bummed because it is a book that you can't just find anywhere and if you do it is very expensive. I had purchased at a really good price. All in all I felt I wasn't getting the whole story from the seller. I mean, the condition the book was in that she sent, she'd have to be blind to not notice it.

[Rosalie]

I'm sorry to hear your bad experience with ebaying Jen. It makes me a little more wary of using it. But fortunately, apart from a very very slow delivery, I haven't had any trouble.
I hope it hasn't put you off it too much. I still find it great especially for that hard to find article.

[Rosalie]

Hahaa Diana, yes if any one wants to make the trip over to Australia just for Campbell's birthday party, then you are indeed invited!

[trytosmile]

Oh heck no Rosalie, didn't stop me at all. Silly me though, I had a couple patterns on my watch list that ended tonight, totally forgot, had to do this darn disability report. Miss the bid :bonk: It was a two patterns for the price of one deal. And of course two patterns I would have liked to have. Oh well, maybe a message from the big guy above that I didn't really need more patterns. :biglaugh:

Do you buy any quilt products from ebay ? I've got some really neat kits. I must take a picture of the one I just finished. It is a table runner but is a checker board. Really neat and the fabrics where wonderful. The company I buy alot from is called Hearts and Pines Country Quilts. Always a great transaction when dealing with them.

[trytosmile]

Rosaline...

Here's a picture of the project that I got from ebay, the checkerboard table runner.

If you want the pattern, I can scan and flip to you.

Real easy project and I've already done two for Christmas presents for this year.

[trytosmile]

LOL...guess i better sent the link to the picture... :loco:, there is also a picture of a Easter table runner I just did.

http://community.webshots.com/myphotos?action=viewAllPhotos&albumID=548639182&security=KsaYBn

[Rosalie]

Jen those quilts are lovely. i have never bought any quilting materials on ebay. If you buy a pack - pattern and fabrics etc- on ebay boes it work out cheaper than butiny all the bits and pieces seperately?

[trytosmile]

For me buying on ebay all depends on how the bid is going. 90% of what I buy is coming from the states so I have to figure the exchange and duty into the price. Somethings are cheaper some things are not. What I like is it is "different", not something you would find here. Fat quarters are a hot item on ebay and the ladies love to bid on them so they go for higher prices. Only things I have bought have been patterns, books and kits. I've got three in my stash that I need to get working at.

Told Tracey the other day it could rain for 40 days and 40 nights and I wouldn't even put a dent in my stash of things to do.

Ok, have you heard of "the convergence" quilt. I've got two of them on the go. Must take a picture of the "inbetween" stage and send to you. I still have to do the quilting but that is the difficult part. Very detailed.

[Rosalie]

Jen , what is a 'convergance' quilt. I haven't heard of that one.

[trytosmile]

Hi Rosalie ... Here this goes, hard to explain but really easy to do. The pictures may help you understand

You start out with 4 squares of fabric, 14x14inches each. Two dark ones and two lighter ones. Out of the four, one has to have some sort of a pattern that you can cut from after the final quilt is done. So could be from the light fabric or the dark fabric.

Place the 4 squares to form a large square just for placement, so dark/light on top and then light/dark on the bottom, however you need to place the light and dark corner to corner, confused yet ? Time to cut your fabrics. Take the two top pieces, light and dark and cut each 14 inch square; all strips, starting at one inch, 1/2, 2, 2 1/2 and then three. Now to sew, sew the 1/2 strip to the three inch strip, light to dark, ok now I'm confused. Then do the same to the bottom light/dark 14 inch squares. You then end up with two pieces of sew fabrics each with a light/dark from the original four fabrics. Then you cut the sewn sets in the same manner and sew them in the same manner. Sewing done, you have taken 4 pieces of 14 inch fabrics, cut and combined into one piece.

Now the fun part. With the leftover fabrics from the one pattern piece you fuse on a design of however you want on to the sewn quilt top. Then quilt and bind. To quilt you stitch in the ditch the one part and then have to quilt each piece you fused on. That is the tough part. I've got three of these darn things on the go right now. The other two are both using Christmas fabrics. One is a gift.

Here is some pictures from couple that I am working on. The red one I am at the quilting stage, Ugh. The blue one, one of the fabrics had a print of a village on it and that is what I have to cut out and fuse to the bottom left side. My Mom is doing this one too, we have used the same four fabrics but she placed her's differently than I. It will be interesting to see how different they turn out.

http://community.webshots.com/myphotos?action=viewAllPhotos&albumID=548639182

[trytosmile]

Rosaline ...

I forgot to mention you do put a boarder around the project after you sew the four sections together. And looks like you cut a 3 1/2 inch strip too.

[Rosalie]

Thanks for the explaination Jen. I thought bewdy hre lets go....and started reading the instructions. The further I got the more confused I got. l was so pleased when I gor to the bottom and found you link to the pictures. Then it all made sense. I am going to Have a go at one of those. They are very effective.

[trytosmile]

Let me draft out some proper instructions for you. I know there a point and I believe it is after you have sewn the two light/dark pieces together that you have to place the fabrics before cutting one last time and turn, I think to the right once, why I'm not sure, something to do with something...lol

I need to get some thread so will ask my quilting teacher exactly how it is done. Get it fresh in my memory. It's been a while since I've cut and sewn one together. I usually do that all at once as it isn't a project you can move your pieces and replace. Very important that it all stays in the right direction at all times. Likely because of the pattern in the fabric. The fabric gets moved that would disrupt the fabric pattern.

I need to write them down for myself anyway as I'm sure I'll want to do more down the road. This gives me a push to do so, instructions for you and reminder for me. :) As I mentioned, seems really complicated but once you get going it is actually really easy and your right very effective.

I will meander over to my mom's and take a picture of one that she has completly finished. It is amazing. Her patterned fabric had flowers and birds in it. It looks like she has birds flying around a bush of flowers.

[Rosalie]

Thanks Jen I really would appreciate the full instructions. I get the impression that, once you master the concept, they are fairly quick to make? It has given me an idea for a quilt for my son. But as i'm running out of time rapidly (thanks to other projects) something quick would be ideal.

[trytosmile]

Hi Rosalie...

I will get on those instructions today. Hope I can get clear enough and your right, once you master the concept, so easy to do. Hardest part is getting all your seams to butt up evenly. What I do is do the whole sewing part and then fix later. That way once you figure out where your going to fuse your design on, you may not even have to fix some of them...lol.

[MarthaB]

:) I'm not really into quilting, not because I don't like it, but I don't think I will ever master it, I really love your work Jen, and Ro i'm sure you will master this too, you know how to quilt, this is maybe just another way of doing it, am I right? hhmmm

[Rosalie]

Yes Martha, it sounds fairly easy and very effective. Hahha but I may just be fooling myself here. It will probably be a different matter when I have a go at one!

[trytosmile]

Hi Rosaline...

Haven't forgot you and the instructions. I tried to draft out some the other day and got myself totally confused...lol. Went into the quilt store in town where I took the class and she has the instructions from the book, author that created the convergence quilt. She is going to pull them out and get me a copy. I can then get it to you. Good thing I checked with her because I had two parts all backwards...lol.

Here is a site that will give some more information and this is where my teacher got her instructions from. I guess is is fairly new in the world of quilting here.

www.rickytims.com

[Rosalie]

Thanks Jen, I look forward to getting the instructions. Ricky Timms was out here last year touring with an International Quilt show. I didn't get to any of the lectures but saw a number of his quilts. They are magnificent aren't they?
I had to laugh at myself because when you first mentioned
'convergance' quilts, it rang a bell somewhere in the deep and dark recesses of my poor little mind but couldn't remember. When I opened the link in your post it hit me! :bonk: I'm such a silly!

[trytosmile]

Hi Rosalie...

I have to slip into town this afternoon, will check and see if my quilting lady has the instructions for you !

[trytosmile]

Hi Rosalie ..

I've got the instructions to do the convergence quilt. I can't seem to get it to upload to my webshots and I can't figure out how to do an attachement on this email. Do you have an email that I can send too ?

[Rosalie]

Thanks Jen for going to the trouble of getting these instructions, I ally aapreciate it. you go to my profile you can email me from there.