SunSpun Creations

SunSpun Creations WWII bomber nose-art on tees, mugs & gifts. Aviation art for pilots, vets & history buffs.

08/23/2026

A black cat with nine lives was exactly the kind of luck a bomber crew prayed for.

This WWII nose art pint glass puts a goggled black cat riding a live bomb — "Nine Lives" scrawled across the banner. Airmen leaned on charms like this the way they leaned on prayer: a cat that always lands on its feet, painted onto a plane headed somewhere it might not come back from. Nose art was morale, superstition and a wink at the odds, all in one coat of paint — now poured onto a heavy 16 oz glass.

Nine Lives Black Cat Pint Glass: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4561110196/

Why crews painted their planes at all: https://bentheretravel.com/wwii-nose-art-lucky-13-bomber-crews/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nine_lives_pint_glass

Full shop in bio - SunSpun Creations, free shipping always.

What's the luckiest charm a crew ever painted on a warbird?

08/21/2026

Nose art had exactly one job: bring them home.

Thirteen was the number nobody wanted. The crews took it anyway — put a grinning black cat on top of it, goggles down, cigar lit, riding the bomb like he owned it — and hung the whole thing on the nose of the plane that had to fly them back. Claim the bad omen and it can't be used against you. Men who flew into flak for a living believed that completely.

Which makes a pint glass the right home for it. The art belonged on the machine that carried them. This one belongs on the shelf where you raise a glass to the fact that it worked.

Heavy-bottom 16 oz mixing glass. The cat keeps his goggles on.

🛒 Shop it → https://www.etsy.com/listing/4543824988/lucky-13-cat-pint-glass-wwii-nose-art

They weren't joking when they painted the unluckiest number in the world on a bomber. They were bargaining.
📖 Read the story → https://bentheretravel.com/wwii-nose-art-lucky-13-bomber-crews/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=lucky13_pint_glass

🔗 Both links are also tappable in bio

👇 What's on your bar shelf that actually has a story behind it?

08/14/2026

Not every plane got a pin-up. Some got a fistfight.

Alongside the painted girls, WWII crews covered their aircraft in scrappy animals — lucky cats, junkyard dogs, roosters with the gloves already laced. Part joke, part armor. It is a little easier to climb into a machine that might not bring you home when the thing has a cartoon on the side grinning at whatever's coming.

That's "C**k of the Walk." Helmet on, goggles up, chest out — a little scrapper absolutely certain he runs this airfield, and probably right. Cartoon nose art was never decoration. It was attitude you could read from the taxiway.

Garment-dyed Comfort Colors tee, 13 colors, 25% off right now.

🛒 Shop it → https://www.etsy.com/listing/4543874525/cock-o-the-walk-shirt-boxing-rooster

Lucky cats, boxing roosters, grinning bulldogs — every cartoon painted on a WWII plane meant something specific.
📖 Read the story → https://bentheretravel.com/reading-wwii-nose-art-symbols-meaning/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=cock_of_the_walk

👇 Every squadron had a mascot. What animal would yours have been?

08/14/2026

In Europe, bomber crews painted luck on their planes. In the Pacific, they painted paradise.

Island-hopping crews were stationed inside the postcard — coral dust, heat, and a whole war between them and the beach the brochures promised. So the nose art became a promise instead: palm fronds, hibiscus, and a girl worth getting home for.

"Pacific Pearl" is that promise in one image — sailor collar, island sarong, perched on a bomb like she's got nowhere better to be. Painted the way the crews would have wanted it. Garment-dyed Comfort Colors tee, 13 colors, 25% off right now.

🛒 Shop it → https://www.etsy.com/listing/4544009354/pacific-pearl-nose-art-shirt-wwii-hula

Six minutes over Midway. That's all it took one "slow" Navy dive bomber to sink three carriers and turn the whole Pacific war. 📖 Read the story → https://bentheretravel.com/sbd-dauntless-dive-bomber/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=pacific_pearl

🔗 Both links are also tappable in bio

👇 Europe got the black cats and lucky numbers. The Pacific got the palm trees. Which theater had the better nose art?

08/14/2026

The Navy called it the radioman-gunner. Every crew called it the tail gunner.

In the back seat of an SBD Dauntless — the dive bomber that turned the Pacific war at Midway — the second crewman rode facing backwards, twin .30s between him and anything on their six.

Our "Tail Gunner" takes the job title a little more literally. Rosie bandana, white shorts, both hands on the Brownings — and a pilot up front grinning like a man who knows exactly how lucky he is. Cheeky pin-up humor, exactly the way the crews painted it back then.

Garment-dyed Comfort Colors tee, 13 colors, 25% off in the shop right now.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4540347259/wwii-nose-art-shirt-tail-gunner-pin-up

👇 Be honest — front seat or back seat?

08/09/2026

Navy nose art mostly didn't live on the carriers.

Fighter pilots rarely flew the same aircraft twice — airframes were pooled across the squadron, so there was little point painting a name on one. The art went where the crews stayed together: the big land-based patrol bombers. A PB4Y Privateer carried eleven men on over-water patrols long enough that the aircraft stopped being equipment and started being the place they lived. Those fuselages got painted accordingly.

Anchors Aweigh is our tribute to that side of it — a sailor pin-up riding the anchor as it breaks the surface, drawn the way a patrol crew would have laid her out.

Anchors Aweigh Tee: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4552690978/

Why crews painted their machines at all: https://bentheretravel.com/wwii-nose-art-lucky-13-bomber-crews/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=anchors_aweigh

Full shop in bio — SunSpun Creations, free shipping always.

Anyone have family who flew patrol? Catalinas, Liberators, Privateers — tell me the aircraft.

08/07/2026

"Send it" started on the radio.

Long before it was the caption on every jump, drop and questionable idea online, it was a call — the one you make after the coordinates get read back and there is nothing left to check. This tee draws that exact second: a skull soldier on the handset, air support already inbound over the treeline. Not a shred of hesitation in it.

Send It Tee: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4414271845/

What close air support actually sounds like from the ground: https://bentheretravel.com/a-10-warthog-the-brrrrt-heard-across-fort-leonard-wood-and-why-soldiers-love-it/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=send_it

Full shop in bio — SunSpun Creations, free shipping always.

What's the last thing you sent it on?

08/05/2026

If you feel froggy, jump.

That's the whole phrase, and every soldier who's heard it knows it was never friendly advice. It's a dare — go ahead, try it, see what happens. So we drew the frog actually taking the dare: old-school flash tattoo linework, combat knife in hand, completely unbothered by the odds.

Feelin' Froggy Tee: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4543856591/

Why soldiers get so attached to the loud stuff: https://bentheretravel.com/a-10-warthog-the-brrrrt-heard-across-fort-leonard-wood-and-why-soldiers-love-it/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=feelin_froggy

Full shop in bio — SunSpun Creations, free shipping always.

What's the one phrase your unit said constantly?

07/28/2026

In Japanese folklore, a fox earns one new tail every hundred years.

So the ones with a full fan behind them have been around long enough to shapeshift, long enough to outwit anyone who tries it on, and are not remotely interested in behaving. That's the kitsune — trickster or guardian, depending entirely on the day you catch it.

I gave this one a 70s sunset, because a thousand-year-old shapeshifter deserves better than a plain background.

Retro Kitsune Tee: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4540170538/

Full shop in bio — SunSpun Creations, free shipping always.

Trickster or guardian? Tell me which one you think it is.

07/28/2026

Nobody warned me matcha would become a personality trait.

This one came to mind somewhere in the back half of my third iced matcha — a big green monster who is very clearly not sorry about any of it. Retro comic linework, that exact shade of green, and the kind of funny matcha lover shirt you end up wearing to your own coffee shop.

Matcha Monster Tee: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4539963374/

Full shop in bio — SunSpun Creations, free shipping always.

Iced or hot, and how many a day? Be honest.

Address

Saint Augustine, FL
32092

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when SunSpun Creations posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to SunSpun Creations:

Shortcuts

Share

Category