How-to: Pawnee Ranger Costume

Yesterday, I showed you guys how to make a Pawnee Goddess costume. Today, it’s the boys’ turn. BE A MAN. BE A PAWNEE RANGER.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, treat yourself to this episode of Parks and Recreation.

Supplies

1 button-down men’s shirt, preferably short-sleeved.

1 iron-on patch that looks like thisÂ (Jo-Ann Fabric carries one that worked for me)

1 khaki-colored baseball cap

green sharpie

x-acto knife

computer with a printer

this PDF of the phrase “Pawnee Rangers” in impact font

small piece of corrugated cardboard

small piece of box board (what cereal boxes are made of)

straight pins

Directions

First, make your shirt. Place the iron-on patch on the right front pocket. I opted to sew my patch on since, in real life, my husband wears the shirt we’re using for the costume.

Now, make the hat. Print your PDF of the phrase “Pawnee Rangers.” I’m out of black printer ink, so mine’s orange.

Cut excess paper from around the text, leaving a little bit of white space all around the text. Make sure it’s an appropriate size for your hat.

Set your paper on a piece of cardboard. I used a couple of straight pins to hold it in place, though that’s not necessary. Cut out the inside of all of your letters using an x-acto knife. Don’t worry about white space in the letters P, A & R for now.

Put your piece of box board inside the front of your hat. Pin the paper stencil you just created to the hat, straight through the box board. Pinning the stencil like you would pin pieces of fabric together causes the paper to warp, making the letters crooked.

Carefully trace along your Â stencil with a green sharpie to get the outlines of each letter on your hat. Remove the stencil.

Fill in your letters with the sharpie, hand-drawing the inside of the P, A and R. This is a huge time-saver.

Leaving the box board in throughout this entire process worked well for me. It gave me a steadier surface to color on and protected the far side of the hat and my work surface from ink bleed.