Last fall my nieces made this beautiful cake for my grandniece’s birthday. I was so impressed that I saved the photos for a blog post.

In my niece’s post (she writes as Vanderbilt Wife) she references her source for this gorgeous cake.

Image via vanderbiltwife.com

After I saw the photos of the birthday cake for my grand-niece, I ran across this photo either on Pinterest or on a link from my Facebook page.

Image via iheartbaking.blogspot.com

Since it was so similar to the other cake, I investigated where this recipe originated. I Heart Baking’s  original post was about this gorgeous roses cake.

Image via http://i-heart-baking.blogspot.com/2011/10/roses-cake.html

Lo and behold, eventually everyone referenced back to I Am Baker, who posted the tutorial on how to do the rose frosting.

Image via http://iambaker.net/vertical-layer-cake-tutororial

She also posted a tutorial on how to do the vertical layers. Amazing.

This nest of link-ups is an example of the ethical dilemma we bloggers are presented with daily. Do you always cite your sources for both text and photos? Are you labeling your photos? If someone wants to steal your work, they will find a way, but I’d like to think that we have an obligation to each other to protect our craft.

Each of these ladies shared their talent and creativity with the world. I was happy to find that everyone involved in this degrees-of-separation scenario eventually linked back to their source. Talent, creativity, and ethics. I’m proud to be one of you.