Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Policies, and Disclosure

Terms of Use 

By accessing or using this blog in any manner, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Use. The reading and viewing of all information on this personal arts and crafts blog, Creativity Unmasked, is of your own free will.  If you do not accept the terms of use, your should cease to use this website immediately. If you do and you like crafty stuff and fun, read on, my creative friends!

This blog is New Zealand based and operates under New Zealand regulations and requirements. All activities on this blog (including this agreement to Terms of Use and any further polices and guidelines) shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of New Zealand, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law.

All content provided on this blog is for informational entertainment purposes only. This is a personal craft/creativity blog and does not provide any form of professional advice. We make no representations (expressed or implied) as to the accuracy, completeness, reliability, availability, suitability, or other regarding any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. You are viewing, reading, and (if you so choose) using any information herein fully and completely at your own risk. The blog owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information, nor for the availability of this information, nor for any reader actions/inactions after reading/viewing this information. The blog owner and any guest writers featured will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display, viewing, or use of any information on this blog. Any downloadable files shared by the site, including but not limited to PDFs, jpegs, and svg files, are provided at the end-user’s own risk and the blog owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages resulting from a corrupted or damaged file. Any information, views, or opinions expressed on this blog are not intended to in any way malign, defame, libel, purge, humiliate or otherwise offend or harm any religion, ethnic group, club, organisation, company, or individual should they read or act upon any information in this blog.  Inevitably, as time passes, some of the content on this blog will become less accurate, outdated, and linked items may cease to be available or relevant.  Please feel free to contact us if you would like to bring any issue or suggested updates to our attention. The blog owner reserves the right to change the focus of the blog, publication status, or change the terms of use at my own discretion. The blog owner reserves the right to edit or delete any comments without notice due to comments deemed to be spam or potential spam, comments including profanity, comments containing language or concepts that could be deemed offensive, comments that attack a group or person individually, or otherwise as deemed appropriate. While the blog owner (and the Blogger filters) will make efforts to moderate comments, they are not responsible for any content in comments. If you see an offensive or inappropriate comment, please do contact us so that we can review and delete if deemed appropriate.  Comments will be removed from accessibility along with blog content should the blog owner every choose to fully expire the blog.

This blog  (or its third-party tools) uses cookies. By using this site, you acknowledge and consent to this practice. See our privacy policy overview below for details on what is in use, why, opting out, and links to external service providers and affiliate associations.

This blog contains links to external sites. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of external links, third-party sites, or services. We strongly advise you to read the terms and conditions and privacy policy of any third-party site that you visit.

This blog uses affiliate links and advertising programs (see below for detailed disclosure). Not sure about how affiliate links work? When a reader clicks on an affiliate link (whether in the text of a post or on an affiliate advertisement/banner) and then makes a purchase, a small commission is received for promoting the seller's website/products.  Prices are the same as they would be if you accessed the site directly.  There is no material benefit from click-throughs, only from referred purchases. Non-affiliate advertisements may operate on views, click-throughs, and/or referrals, depending on the nature of the advertising agreement.  I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website.  Any directly sponsored or compensated posts will be clearly noted within the body of the post and/or in full detail at the end of the post (see below for detailed disclosure).

Please review this page periodically for changes. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace these terms by posting updated terms. Your continued use constitutes your acceptance of the new terms.

 Copyright Policy

This blog and its original content are owned by Creativity Unmasked and are protected by international copyright and other intellectual property or proprietary rights laws. Unless otherwise noted, the blog owner is the copyright owner of all original content and photographs on this blog. Unauthorised duplication of material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Brief excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Please refer to the Link with Love page for full details on how to share. We love it when you share! 

Any shared content on this blog that has been sourced from elsewhere has been rightly purchased and/or credited appropriately, to the best of my knowledge. If you see an attribution error, please let us know so that we can fix it up straight away. Thanks for helping! If your content has been featured here and you would like it to be removed, please contact us and we will make sure it is taken down.

Privacy Policy

We take privacy seriously.  Like your privacy?  We completely understand - even though we have this (super cool) blog and spend lots of time doing fun stuff online, we’re really very private about personal stuff. As per our Terms of Use, this blog is governed by New Zealand law. Under New Zealand law, the collection and disclosure of personal data is governed by The Privacy Act.  You can read more about The Privacy Act via the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. Consumer has also created an easy to understand overview of our Privacy Law. The online world is always evolving and we endeavour to adopt better practices, where feasible, above and beyond the requirements of the Act. Here is an overview of our privacy policy and practices, and what that means for our visitors.

We do not directly collect or store personal data. No log-in, subscription, or other personal access control is applied to our blog. It is openly and freely shared. We do not sell/provide any products/services, just fun personal posts about creative ideas. We do not use email newsletters, direct marketing, or other forms of email promotion. If you are using a service or application to subscribe to feed updates from here and/or your other favourite blogs/sites, they are independent of the source blog(s). Check your chosen provider to see their individual privacy policies. No personal information is required to make a comment on our blog; however, a variety of linked options are available. If you would like to delete a comment that you have made and are unable to do so yourself, please get in touch and we will assist. If you contact the blog via email, any personal and/or contact information provided will be kept private. You will not be spammed and we will not directly sell or disclose your information to other parties with the exception of the unlikely event that provision to a lawful authority is necessary.  If you have contacted us with a reader question/query and you would like your email deleted, please feel free to contact us at any time and we will double check and confirm to you we have deleted your email(s) from our mail system.

We do use third-party systems and services which may collect data when you browse the blog and/or use data collected elsewhere to customise advertising served to you on the blog. When you first visit(ed) the blog, you may have been greeted by a notification that this site uses cookies. Mmmm…cookies!  Unfortunately, these are not the edible variety, but they’re very useful. Cookies are small pieces of data sent from sites you visit to your browser. Most sites have some form of cookie activity happening in the background - they are commonly used to help users navigate efficiently and/or to provide information. We’re not computer gurus, so if you’d like to know more about cookies, here are some handy articles: How Stuff Works – What is an Internet cookie?  | Cookie Central FAQ  Importantly for our readers, cookies are an integral part of how we keep this blog operating for free and improve content/construct over time.

  • Cookies make the site more user-friendly, with simple basic functions such as stopping our Cookie Consent pop up from plaguing your visits after you've already clicked "Got It!" Yay cookies! :)
  • Cookies help us understand our audience and improve the blog. With the exception of small plug-ins that help you with navigation, sharing, and other use of our blog, the key function of our data use is to help understand our traffic.  Analytics analyse and compile non-identifiable aggregated data.  We use these analytics simply to help understand things like popular post topics or incoming links (search terms, inbound links from other public sites, etc.) so that we can improve the content that we share with you and construct of our blog.  We do not use Google Analytics, but Blogger has very basic in-built analytics which allow which allow us to review aggregated information such as page/post view numbers, referring sources, and a basic breakdown of page views by country. We cannot access any individual data.  Google AdSense and our various affiliate program have inbuilt analytics which show a similar level of aggregated information. 
  • Cookies help us to keep the blog open access and completely free! Advertising and affiliate programs are what helps to allow us to offset the cost of running this as a free website (see below for full details).  Advertising and affiliate programs use unique referrer codes and cookie/tag tracking to credit the referring source. These are applied and controlled by the receiving site. We cannot access any associated individual data.  Advertisers may also use their own data to customise the advertising content that is served in designated positions on our site. We do not control customisation. Our primary form of non-affiliate advertising is Google Adsense, and you can read about their policies for advertising here.
  • Opting out. Cookies and advertising relationships are keeping this blog and many others sharing for free, but if you’re hard core anti-cookie, there are a number of options available to you including: customisation with individual third-parties, adjusting settings or cleansing the cookies in your browser (How to Geek), using private/incognito browsing, or using an opt-out or blocker service.  

External links will take you to sites that operate under different individual privacy policies.  This blog includes a variety of different links (internal and external), including references, resources, special interest links, comment links, social media links, affiliate links, and advertising banners. Once you leave our blog by clicking through on a link, the site you enter will have its own privacy policy (and in some cases, notifications and/or opt-ins).  We are not responsible for these policies or practices; however, if you are ever directed to a site of concern please let us know – especially if the link is a corruption/error in our content or undetected spam placed by a commenter.

Third party services and external associates operate under different individual privacy policies. We do our best to ensure that we use reputable service providers to host our blog and provide associated supporting services. If you have a concern about one of the service providers or affiliate programs that we are using that may affect your sense of privacy when visiting the blog, please get in touch. Here are our service providers and affiliate associations, along with their individual privacy policy links. We also use a variety of social media, and corresponding privacy policies are available within each individual social media site/app.


Advertising, Affiliation, and Sponsorship

We may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website.  Although we often share links without having any relationship, material or otherwise, with the linked source, readers should presume that any/all links on this blog may have an affiliate or other relationship attached.

Advertisements and affiliate links that appear on this blog are third-party. We do not personally vet or endorse the products and services advertised in any of these formats. As detailed in our Privacy Policy, third-party sites/services may use cookies and/or other identifiers to manage their advertisement programs, as well as to serve personalised content. Opt-outs and third-party ad-blockers are available should you wish to screen advertisements from this and/or other websites. Affiliate and advertising programs are, however, what helps to offset the cost of running a free site. It takes a lot of time, energy, and resources to run a blog and to create/share fresh content. Thanks for understanding why we choose to use affiliate and advertising programs. Please be advised that:

  • Creativity Unmasked is a participant in Google AdSense which provides a means for sites to earn advertising fees by providing placement locations for advertisements served by Google AdSense to site visitors. 
  • Creativity Unmasked is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and any other website that may be affiliated with Amazon Service LLC Associates Program, which may include One-Link redirect to local variants such as Amazon.ca. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
  • Creativity Unmasked is a participant in The Book Depository Affiliate Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to TheBookDepository.Com.
  • Creativity Unmasked is a participant in the AliExpress Affiliates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AliExpress.com.

 Not sure about how affiliate links work? When a reader clicks on an affiliate link (whether in the text of a post or on an affiliate advertisement/banner) and then makes a purchase, a small commission is received for promoting the seller's website/products.  Prices are the same as they would be if you accessed the site directly.  There is no material benefit from click-throughs, only from referred purchases. Non-affiliate advertisements may operate on views, click-throughs, and/or referrals, depending on the nature of the advertising agreement.  The blog owner may earn a small commission for an endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this blog. 

Compensated posts will only be accepted if they suit the ethics, audience, style, and intent of the blog. Compensated posts at will always be clearly identified and will use "no follow" links. We believe that it is important to be upfront, open, and honest with readers. Disclosure of any material relationships or compensation is not only a legal requirement, but also a matter of personal ethics. This blog accepts products for review and/or giveaway. Reviews are honest. Whether a post is paid or unpaid, we will only recommend products that we have personally used and enjoyed.

Unpaid/uncompensated posts make up the vast majority of content here on the blog.  These posts may include unpaid links which help to provide supplemental information on a post or topic, including but not limited to definitions, resources, charities, events, etc. The blog owner is not compensated in any way for writing these posts or sharing the links - we just love to share! These uncompensated posts may also include affiliate links or display advertisements, as noted above, where the linked products or services may interest readers based upon post content.

Note: Any product claim, statistic, quote, or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Any warranty claims, defects, issues, or disputes must be raised and dealt with directly with the manufacturer and/or provider.

This page was last updated on 19 October 2019
Questions, requests, or other feedback? Contact us at thelauranetwork@gmail.com
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