Is it worth the money???

For the last several years I've been hearing about the prismacolor pencils (just regular ones...not watercolor). Everyone RAVES about these pencils. And if you use them with gamasol (or oderless mineral spirits or baby oil) then you can blend them so it looks more like watercolor. I already owned some colored pencils that I bought at Michael's in the scrapbooking section. I believe they are the ONLY packages of pencils in the scrapbooking section. And I've been using my pencils with oderless mineral spirits. They blend a bit but are hard to bend and I haven't been thrilled with my coloring. This week...the prismacolor pencils were 25% off at Michael's (including open stock pencils). So I bought 5 individual pencils to try out. They were $1.49 each...so I paid $1.25 each for them after the sale price. And here is my comparison to share with you.

First I stamped my main image twice and laid out my supplies. The regular pencils are on the left...the prismas are on the right.



Next I laid down a layer of color around the edges of the images. I noticed that the prismas went on SO much easier (didn't feel like I was having to push hard to get the color I wanted).



Then I used a blending stump and the mineral spirits to pull color in towards the center of the image. The prisma blended really easily and I discovered, if anything, that I'd layed down TOO much color because it pulls so easily. I'll have to note that for the next time. Here are the two finished images. I think either works...but the prisma one is definately more vibrant and was so much easier to do. With the regular pencils I had to push on the stump really hard when blending.



And then I choose my favorite image and made a pop-up slider card with it! Check back tomorrow to view the card! (Yep, I'm a tease!)

You can buy the primacolor pencils in all sorts of combinations. You can buy them singly, in sets of 24, 48, and 100+. I do think I'll ask Santa for set of the 100+ ones. You can get them on ebay for around $50-60 (obviously they are more at Michael's...I'm not sure how the price compares with a 40% off coupon...will have to check that out!)

Today is a holiday...enjoy and go PLAY!

Jane