It's time! My first review!

So - as I stated in a previous post I woke up to an email from CSNStores.com.  I've never shopped with them before so it was a bit surprising of an email to get.  They offered to give me or a reader of my blog a $40 gift certificate to their site.  Since they don't have much in the way of craft stuff and this is a craft blog - I decided I'd use the certificate and do a review.  I didn't feel like I could recommend a company I had never used before - especially since they didn't focus on craft supplies.
In searching their site they have TONS of stuff - but as I said, only a few craft related items.  I decided to try the Prismacolor Premier colored pencils. I choose to get the 48 count and pay the difference - plus it's on sale with free shipping!
Usually when you get free shipping from a company it's the slowest shipping available - but not this time! I placed my order on Tuesday, June 8th, and I received them yesterday, the 10th! Very impressive shipping time.
As far as the website - it was easy to navigate, easy to make a purchase from, and has a huge variety of products.  The only thing I didn't like about is that it doesn't have any customer reviews - which I really can't fault the company for since they do offer customers to review the product.

So on to the review! I choose the colored pencils because of the digi craze! When I color in pencil - the only pencils I have and use are my daughter's Crayola colored pencils.  They have great colors but are always breaking, making me have to sharpen them again and again. 

Something I didn't like about the Prismacolor pencils is that a few of them are cracked - I assume from when they imprinted the name onto the pencil - it's not a very good picture, but hopefully you can see the way the pencil has impact mark on it.

The differences I noticed when coloring the image from Meljen Designs is that the Prismacolor pencils are a lot smoother.  The colors are also richer than Crayola.

The first is Crayola.  The second is Prismacolor.  

I tried to use similar colors while coloring - but didn't match them perfectly.  Either way you can see that the Prismacolors gave a darker coloring because of their richness.  The Crayola pencils kept breaking apart while I colored the image, while the Prismacolors left only a few little pieces.  In both you can still see the lines. I didn't blend the coloring with oil (or whatever technique it is people use to lessen the pencil markings).  I haven't done that technique before and wanted it clear the way the pencils mark - hopefully I did that.

If you really enjoy coloring digis with colored pencil - after this experience, a cheapskate like me, thinks that going for a higher quality pencil is definitely worth it.

And here is what I did with the final images - using the sketch from PaperWorks Co. Blog