Simone Cabral Transforms Coffee Pods Into Sustainable Meaningful Jewelry

Simone Cabral gives discarded aluminum coffee pods a second life as wearable objects, folding single-use detritus into handmade jewelry and small art pieces under the name By Soul & Hands. Her simple tagline, “Wear the change you want to see,” frames a practice that treats trash as material and story rather than mere waste.

Cabral collects used coffee pods from her community and confronts the material exactly as it arrives: “dented, stained, and inconsistent, carrying the marks of their previous life.” Her process begins with rigorous preparation: “Before any design work begins, the pods must be cleaned, sanitized, flattened, cut, folded, and shaped entirely by hand.” Those steps are literal and physical, not metaphorical—each pod is manipulated by hand until it reads as metalwork rather than single-use packaging.

The project grew from a home experiment into what Cabral describes as “a mindful, independent practice rooted in reuse, intention, and storytelling.” She is explicit about scope: she is the founder and artist behind By Soul & Hands in Bloomington, IN, and “from the first sketch to the final package, Simone brings each creation to life through her own two hands — designing, crafting, and fulfilling every order with care.” That full-cycle authorship shapes every decision, from how a dent becomes texture to how a fold becomes a bezel-like curve.

Cabral frames her pieces as prompts. “When someone wears one of my pieces, they’re not just wearing jewelry. They’re engaging with a question: What if everyday materials still have something to offer?” The work sits alongside other creative approaches to pods: a separate reuse guide called Softandserene lists alternate projects such as “Custom Play-Clay Molds,” holiday ornaments that “add a touch of homemade elegance,” and even travel-friendly snack cups reimagined from upcycled pods. Those ideas underscore the material’s versatility while keeping Cabral’s focus on jewelry and small art objects.

For Cabral, the ethical claim is modest and concrete: “For me, that change starts small, with attention, care, and a willingness to look at waste differently.” The result is not mass recycling rhetoric but objects that carry the scars of previous use and the imprint of a single artisan’s hand, invitations to wear a story as much as an accessory.