Homebody Collective

Hi, I’m Cass! I started this page back in 2017, and since so many of you are new here… it felt like time to reintroduce myself 🤓

I’m 35 and I’ve been running my own creative business since my mid-20s. After nearly a decade of being my own boss… yeah, I don’t think I could ever go back 💁🏻‍♀️

I’m a Scorpio ♏️ (with self-awareness, therapy, and ongoing healing to match).

In a past life, I was a theatre kid with Broadway dreams and a student of cultural anthropology + social justice who thought I’d become a professor. Turns out, I built a life that blends all of that in its own way.

If you stick around, here’s what you’ll find:

✨ the real behind-the-scenes of running a small creative business

✨ mental health honesty from someone learning to live more truthfully (and mask less)

✨ open conversations about depression + domestic violence from a survivor POV because shame thrives in silence, and I don’t carry that anymore

✨ social justice because human rights are non-negotiable

✨ my forever puppy Lulu 🐶 (the actual star of the show)

✨ travel diaries as I chase my childhood dream of seeing the world

✨ and a little bit of everything else… because ADHD said “one interest isn’t enough”

If you’re here for honesty, growth, a little chaos, and a lot of heart, you’re in the right place 💫

I really value this little community and I’m really curious, have you been here a long time or found me recently through a market or maybe through one of my posts that totally exemplifies my ‘what is going on’ era? 🤣 If you’ve been here a long time, what keeps you here?

I read every comment, so PLEASE lemme know 👀

🪴 OOAK TICKET GIVEAWAY 🪴

I’ll be back at this Thursday - Sunday right smack in the centre aisle for their new Garden Section! Find me at BOOTH H10 for some cute and whimsical planty goodness!

To celebrate, I am giving away TWO TICKETS 🤞🏼

To enter see below:

1) Tag the buddy you want to bring to AND name my booth number! You can tag as many buddies as you want in separate comments for more entries ✌🏼
2) Follow .collective
3) Enter as many times as you want!
4) Bonus entry: Let me know who you’re excited to see at 👀

That’s it!! Contest runs until Wednesday 6 PM and I’ll announce winners Wednesday night 🥰

* OOAK show tickets will be sent electronically and are non transferable

Winter hits different when you run a seasonal small business… and not in a cute way. What’s it really like? Flip through to the end. Other small business owners, can you relate? 👀

I’m back at this Friday-Sunday for a beautiful Lunar New Year’s celebration 🧧 Find me and other AAPI artisans in Centre Court!

Come marvel at the gorgeous Horse statue for the year of the Horse (it’s MY YEAR 🐴) and make sure you don’t miss the amazing Lion and traditional Chinese dances this Saturday and Sunday from 1:30-3 PM.

See you soon ❤️

I didn’t ‘outgrow’ 10 years of depression—I learned how to fight it every winter. Save this post and come back to it on hard days. Make sure to share this with someone who needs extra support this winter 🫶🏻

Sometimes social media is shallow, but this 2016 trend is actually quite meaningful to me.

2016 was one of the hardest years of my life, and truth be told, I didn’t think I would still be here.

If you’ve been following me since the beginning, you may remember that I used to post a lot more content about mental health with a particular aim to destigmatize depression and those who seek therapy.

It’s been TEN years since I first started showing up here and so much has changed. I definitely feel that there is a lot less stigma about mental illness and people proudly talk about seeking therapy.

I hope that by continuing to speak out about my experience, that I can play a teeny tiny part in helping someone feel seen.

As a survivor of domestic violence and a survivor of depression, I want you to know that it can get better. It can get so much better ❤️

#2016 #2026

This is a long and important one! Save to read for later ❤️

When I first started showing up on IG (back in 2017), my focus was to share life lessons and to document my mental health journey as a person living with chronic depression. In 2025, I can finally say….that depression no longer rules my life 🥹 I have my highs and lows, and good and bad days, but for the past 2 years I have found a much better balance and I’m so proud of myself for that. Here are 5 life lessons I want to share with you as we all step into another year:

1) Realizing this reality is scary, but with the right framing it is truly empowering. When I realized that the only person’s approval I needed to make moves with my life was ME, doors started to open up in my imagination. Did you realize that you’re an adult now? That you have AGENCY in your life and that YOU are the hero in your own life? A lot of us spend our lives waiting around for someone to come and tell us what to do… well guess what? Everyone’s too busy with their own issues. Wake up, and be the boss of yourself.

2) For years and years, I would delay making moves in my life because I wasn’t 100% sure that I would like that new direction. Questions would flood me like: “will i want to keep doing that in 5 years? Is it practical? What if i start it and hate it?” And then another year would pass, I wouldn’t make the change, I would still be thinking about it, time kept moving on. In 2025, I decided that I would make the change and take it DAY BY DAY. I would live my life as it happened instead of trying to guess the ending before the book was written. If I wanted to change my mind in a week, in a year, in many years, it would be OK but I rather not live with inaction and stagnancy and worse of all: regret.

3) How many times have you thought about how amazing it would be to learn to do something new (to dance, to cook, to do pottery, to INVEST) but stopped yourself after you started learning because you sucked at it. (Continued in the comments)