Disclaimer: We are part of the campaigning bloggers promoting the release of the film described in this blog post, alongside Allied Contigo. Although we received a digital copy of the film, alongside other promoting material, in exchange for sharing this campaign and our experience, all opinions are 100% our own. Any and all promotional photos and information were provided to us for press purposes. Blog post photos are the property of Just Happiling, and may not be redistributed without our written consent. 

Let me walk you through some things that we started with, in hopes that you and your family can join the fun as well. This craft is very easy to do, and you'll find out that once you get the hang of it, you might want to recreate all of your favorite characters from the MCU. And by 'all', I mean ALL, haha. This craft is super fun, it is a great way to spend some family time together, and the best part is that you might have most, if not all the materials wondering around your home already. So let's get started... 

Step 1; Take a discarded wine/champagne cork, and paint it all white with your acrylic paint. If the paint doesn't stick to it, due to the material of the cork, use masking tape to cover all the cork first. Then you'll be able to paint over it. 

Step 2; Once the white paint dries, take your reference image, so you can decide how you want your 'cork avenger' to look like. You can make it as realistic as your skills allows you to, or as simple as you'd prefer. Sometimes simple can be as cool as very detailed. It depends on what you are into and again, your skills. In my case, although I love creating realistic faces, I also like creating characters that look more like a cartoon. Therefore, this will be my baseline to create these mini cork avengers. 

Step 3; Use a pencil to trace and sketch your character. Decide where you want the face to be, and use that as a reference for the rest of the body and costume. As you can see in the picture below, I started with Dr. Strange, because although I love all the Avengers, if I had to choose just one, I'd choose Dr. Strange. I like the mystic arts part of his character, and definitely his power to manipulate time.

Step 4; Now you can start painting your character! Start by the lightest colors and as they dry, continue moving towards the darkest ones. Word of advice; leave the edges where the colors meet, to be painted until the end. Use a more precise brush for those edges, just so your lines look cleaner. Remember, you don't have to be perfect in your strokes, because this is a handmade craft, and that is precisely what makes each craft a unique piece. Try to wait for the colors to dry before you go to the next one, or you might risk mixing colors. Also, if you feel you made a mistake, quickly remove the paint with a tissue, wait for it to dry, and paint over it again. I always find it hard to get the right 'flesh' color, so I end up mixing a bunch of colors and paint all the faces at once so that the color matches. You don't have to do this, that is just something I do myself, but it might help you if you want uniformity in your characters.

Step 5; Once all the paint has dried, you can add details with different materials, such as; gel pens, glitter, permanent markers, etc. This will make your characters look super-awesome. Alternatively, you can choose to seal the colors in with a very thin layer of white glue, or lacquer. With the white glue, be careful as you can smudge the colors. A spray lacquer may be better, just remember to do this in a well ventilated area. In my case, I don't feel the need to seal them, so I'm technically finished.

Step 6; Have fun! To be honest, I didn't think these would turn out as cute as they did. I thought that they would do great Holiday ornaments if I inserted a little hoop on their heads with a string or so. This would be perfect, because I had been thinking of creating an Avengers-themed Christmas tree, and this would be just the craft to fill the tree with all the Avengers. After all, ten years in the making are the equivalent of a lot of characters you can create.

As you can see in the picture below, I did not stop at Dr. Strange. I also had to create my husband's favorite Avenger; the all-mighty God of Thunder, Thor! And of course it is Thor with a patch, since we are watching Avengers: Infinity War.

I do not have to tell you how addictive it is to keep on going, making more characters. I think that  the only thing that saved me at this time, was running out of corks, haha. I still had a third cork for this project, and because of the shape, I had a pretty good idea of who was going to be next. Can you guess who it will be? 

If you said 'Groot', you are Groot! I mean--right! I am not that great at painting, although I enjoy doing the whole crafting part of it. However, I've always felt I'm good at simulating trees with paint, so Groot was going to be very fun to paint. I think that if I find more corks, Black Panther, Okoye & Black Widow will be next.

Once all my cork Avengers were dry, it was on to my next project; drawing!

I love to draw. My grandmother was a painter, so I learned to appreciate art at an early age. She would give us assignments, and we would sketch different things. From there, I learned that I had a fascination for facial expressions, and I believe that's one of the reasons why I just love comic books so much. In my opinion, comic books are the one place where you can find all types of facial expressions, while at the same time, you get submerged into a fabulous world of heroes and villains, where the outcome is always uncertain.

This is actually one of the reasons why I really enjoyed this film. **SPOILER** We grow up thinking that the good guys always win, and some might get really upset when they don't. Although for the most part, the good guys do win, the whole point of the struggles throughout their journey, is to create excitement and really get you thinking of the road ahead. In my case, I do like the unexpected turn of events, it keeps the movie from being predictable.

Art is kind of that way too. You start thinking it will go one way, and you end up with a different result, and you might not like it at some point, but then it changes again, until you find your path, to the best outcome, then you add your signature, and you win, haha.

Because I am a romantic, I decided to sketch Scarlet Witch. I really like her super powers, and the interaction between her and Vision. Warning, this sketch has a bit of a **SPOILER**, so if you haven't seen the film, just scroll down a little more passed the drawing, and into the deliciousness we prepared for our Avengers-inspired movie night.

Bake, chop, mix, heat, eat!

One reason why we love eating tacos, especially during movie night, is because they are so easy to make, versatile in the making, and you can easily personalize them to the taste of the members of your family.

We baked a chicken, using different spices and herbs that we enjoy. Again, you can personalize your chicken so it tastes the way your family loves the most.

Then while the chicken was baking, we made 'Pico de Gallo'. Commonly known in some areas of the United States as 'Mild Salsa', which is the chopped tomatoes, onion, and cilantro--that is, if you like cilantro. Some people do not add the cilantro, but that is how you usually find it in Mexico, and it is called 'Pico de Gallo' (Rooster's Beak), why? I have no idea, but that's the popular name in Mexico. To ours, we just chop the three ingredients as shown in the collage above, and add spices like; salt, pepper, and others to taste. In addition to that, we add some olive oil, and lime juice. We mix it all up, and voala!

Now, when I build our chicken tacos, I make some other changes. I replace sour-cream with thick yogurt. I start by spreading a base of yogurt in the middle of the corn tortilla, then I add the chicken on top of it. I pour a line across the chicken with green salsa, and top it up with the 'Pico de Gallo'. That's the way we eat them, and we really love them. In a way, it's like eating a chicken salad, but with a more fun presentation. You've got your veggies, a "dressing", corn, and chicken. 

I know it's not Hulk's favorite shawarma, but here's a different version to the baked chicken tacos we're showing in the pictures above. Alternative, which we also got to enjoy during our Avengers' Movie Night. It's the same concept, but with a couple of changes. We used links instead of baked chicken, and flour tortillas instead of corn. 

We found these delicious 'chicken - apple & spinach' links at the store, and they smell so good when grilled or fried on a pan. I sliced each in three pieces, so that the three pieces could be spread out throughout the tortilla. Therefore, you'd use one link, per tortilla, considering that these tortillas are big. If yours are smaller, you can use one to two slices per tortilla. Please be careful at all times when slicing links; they can be tricky. I fried the slices on a pan, because at the moment we have no grill, and it worked perfectly well to seal the flavor within the links. It also gave them a bit of a charred flavor, which many of us enjoy. Finally, it was time to build the taco, same concept; yogurt, meat, green salsa, pico de gallo, and bon appetit. Finger-licking good. They were gone in a snap, haha.

After ten years of Marvel Universe stories filled with so many characters, we were not expecting every single one of the characters to make an appearance in this film. However, it was great to see many of them, even if it was briefly. In these regards, you have no idea of how happy I got, when I saw Wong (from Dr. Strange) appearing several times throughout the beginning of the film; I just love this character. Fun fact, did you know that his real name is 'Benedict Wong', I know--mind blowing huh.

One of the coolest things about this film, for us, was the fact that the big battle took place in Wakanda. I thought this made it super epic, and we just can't have enough of it. Wakanda forever!

I really love this franchise, and for some reason, I really admire the consistency they've kept with the type of sense of humor they incorporate to each film even if they have different directors. It's like each movie was happening in an alternative life-path, which ultimately connected perfectly into this epic battle against a much tougher and bigger enemy, Thanos. Before this film, we were sort of expecting something of this caliber to happen, because all previous films were leading to this. But I can surely tell you that after this film, I feel like I have no clue of what is to happen next. I have some theories, but again, that is what I love about expecting the unexpected. It will be even more entertaining and amusing to find out what's next for our favorite characters in the upcoming films.

I'm so glad that Dr. Strange had a huge part in this film. I get excited every time he conjures a spell. Nonetheless, his sense of humor is what I mostly connect with. I mean come on, he made Wong laugh. Watching his interaction with Tony Stark and with Spider-Man, was hilariously awesome. All in all, watching all of my favorite Avengers together in one film, always makes me feel like a little kid. I know my husband was feeling the same way, whenever the members of Guardians of the Galaxy were interacting with Thor: All of his favorite characters sharing the same scenes. With that being said, we definitely had a blast watching Avengers: Infinity War.

Oh by the way, my pink lemonade was photo-bombing my pictures, on purpose. We were really enjoying our food while watching the film. Pink lemonade went really well with our tacos, and the theme of the movie night. It was like a mixture of the glow of the reality stone, and the power stone. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it, wink*.

"Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good..." Oh my, although we had already seen this film in theaters, there are certain moments that keep on hitting us hard, reminding us, how unexpected stories can be, especially with superheroes. I can't specify much peeps, because I know that some of you might have not watched this film yet. If this is your case, I really hope that you are planning to watch it soon, because in my opinion, it is totally worth it. I know some people did not like how the story unfolded in this part of the franchise. However, something we've learned throughout watching all of these movies, for the past ten years, is that you have to be open to the bigger picture. As we are understanding, there will be so many more Avengers and individual character films, that all we can say is; be patient and keep an open mind. You can't have continuation in the different stories and roles of the upcoming characters, if there is not a mayor plot happening. Sometimes even superheroes need saving.

So feelings aside, if you see beyond that part of the film, you'd appreciate the fantastic work that the rest of the crew put into the making of this movie. From special effects, and costumes, to the sound track, which in my opinion, keeps on getting better and better. In our household, we all know that Avengers' films, equals tons of fun and entertainment.

TAKE HOME A PIECE OF CINEMATIC HISTORY

MARVEL STUDIOS’

 “AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR”

ARRIVES DIGITALLY ON JULY 31 AND BLU-RAY ON AUG. 14

Go behind the scenes of the No. 4 film of all time to gain exclusive access to more than two hours of never-before-revealed details of its unprecedented, ten-year cinematic journey which includes an epic filmmaker roundtable, an inside look at the surprising Super Hero pair-ups, deleted scenes and more!

BURBANK, Calif. (July 10, 2018) — Box office history was made when Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Infinity War” shattered all opening records, surpassed the $2 billion mark at the global box office in just 48 days, and remains the fourth highest-grossing film of all tim

“Marvels’ Avengers: Infinity War” is a must-own addition to every in-home film collection and is packaged several ways so that fans get the most out of their viewing experience. Consumers who experience the ultimate showdown Digitally will join a 30-minute roundtable with Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) directors Anthony and Joe Russo, Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, James Gunn, Ryan Coogler, Peyton Reed and Taika Waititi who reflect on how their movies contribute to the MCU’s larger storytelling adventure.

The 4K Cinematic Universe Edition’s never-before-seen bonus material grants behind-the-scenes access to MCU members and features the memorable moments when characters first meet, the rationale behind some unexpected on-screen pair-ups, and a funny Super Hero gag reel. Featurettes explore the frighteningly powerful Thanos and two action-packed attempts to prevent his collection of all six Infinity Stones: the struggle on Titan and the massive battle in Wakanda. Deleted scenes and filmmaker commentary reveal even more on-set secrets from Marvel Studios’ monumental undertaking.

The Multi-Screen Edition includes a Blu-ray and a Digital Copy of the film, giving viewers the flexibility to watch the film on different devices. Those with 4K Ultra HD capability may opt for a 4K Cinematic Universe Edition, which includes a 4K Ultra HD disc, a Blu-ray, and a Digital Copy.

And for those who wish to catch up on their MCU history, select retailers are also offering bundled packaging as well as individual Digital and Physical releases of “Marvel’s The Avengers” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

In “Avengers: Infinity War,” members from every MCU franchise must sacrifice like never before in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe. The film stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Don Cheadle as Colonel James Rhodes/War Machine, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Paul Bettany as Vision, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Idris Elba as Heimdall, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Peter Dinklage as Eitri, Benedict Wong as Wong, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Dave Bautista as Drax, featuring Vin Diesel as Groot, Bradley Cooper as Rocket, with Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, with Benicio Del Toro as The Collector, with Josh Brolin as Thanos, and Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Star-Lord.

Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Infinity War” is directed by Emmy® Award–winning directors Anthony and Joe Russo from an original screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely. Kevin Feige produced the film, with Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo, Trinh Tran, Jon Favreau, James Gunn and Stan Lee serving as executive producers.

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo’s creative team includes director of photography Trent Opaloch (“Captain America: Civil War,” “Elysium”), production designer Charles Wood (“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “The Matrix”), editors Jeffrey Ford, ACE (“Captain America: Civil War,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron”), and Matthew Schmidt (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Iron Man 3”), three-time Oscar®-nominated costume designer Judianna Makovsky (“Captain America: Civil War,” “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”), visual effects supervisor Dan DeLeeuw (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Captain America: Civil War”), six-time Oscar®–nominated special effects supervisor Dan Sudick (“Captain America: Civil War,” “Black Panther”), and stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave (“Captain America: Civil War,” “Atomic Blonde”).

Based on the Marvel comic franchise first published in 1963, “Avengers: Infinity War” continues the lineage of epic big-screen adventures chronicled in  “Iron Man,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Iron Man 2,” “Thor,” “Captain America: The First Avenger,” “Marvel’s The Avengers,” “Iron Man 3,” “Thor: The Dark World,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,”  “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Ant-Man,” “Captain America: Civil War,” “Doctor Strange,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Thor: Ragnarok,” and “Black Panther.”

SOCIAL MEDIA:

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Instagram: Instagram.com/Avengers            

Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of more than 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years.  Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing and publishing. For more information visit marvel.com. ©2018MARVEL

For over 90 years, The Walt Disney Studios has been the foundation on which The Walt Disney Company was built. Today, the Studio brings quality movies, music and stage plays to consumers throughout the world. Feature films are released under the following banners: Disney, including Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios; Disneynature; Marvel Studios; and Lucasfilm. The Disney Music Group encompasses the Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records labels, as well as Disney Music Publishing. The Disney Theatrical Group produces and licenses live events, including Disney on Broadway, Disney On Ice and Disney Live!.

Until next time...
XOXO