Good morning my lovely readers. It’s snowing here in Texas. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about it. I’m ready for spring. I am legitimately ready. I even bought some super floral spring dress in order to call spring forth. But I digress, this isn’t what this post is about. It’s about not appropriating anyone else’s artwork, work, writings, and pretty much anything you did not create but are taking credit for or using it without attributing the author.

This is the technological or information age, right? There are many ways in which you can find images, writings,  and artwork in general on the Internet. You can even use search engines like Bing, Google, or even Yahoo! to search for simple words or phrases like “donut with sunglasses” “cat cake” or “Game of Thrones cat”. Okay this is the tricky part, the images or links you find that produce whatever it is you’re looking for have a creator. There’s a person out there that worked hard to make these things. If you can’t find the person, you can easily write “I am not the creator of *insert whatever here*. If you are the creator or know who made this please feel free to tag them to this post or comment below”.

Seriously, it’s that simple. How would you feel if you had a little shop where you make a specific design? Maybe you drew a particular cupcake doing a dance with some cool shades that YOU came up with. You’re proud of this image. You’re happy you finally created something you feel is good enough to make into prints, shirts, and bags! Then someone comes along and reposts it, reblogs it, posts it on their page but doesn’t take the time to credit you. You know, that person found it on the Internet so it belongs to them now. No, that’s not how it works.

Please, please just take the time to give credit to the things you love. If you feel passionate about a product that is handmade or created by small business owners, authors, or artists, share it! You don’t lose anything! On the contrary, you gain someplace new to shop. You encourage the creators to keep creating and you can even make new friends!