# Making an anniversary keepsake with the Heart Keepsake Map preset > a meaningful place framed in a heart shape This preset crops the map of the place you met into a heart: blush-rose roads on warm cream, sage parks, and soft blue water, loaded on Paris because of course it is. It's the toolkit's purpose-built romance piece - anniversary gifts, wedding favors, Valentine's ornaments, engagement keepsakes. ## What you need - **UV printing:** flatbed UV printer, light wood or white/clear [acrylic](https://yxecreations.com/pages/acrylic-sheets); pre-cut heart blanks if you have them, or print-then-cut on the laser - **Sublimation:** sublimation printer + paper, heart-shaped poly-coated hardboard or ceramic ornament blanks (widely available), heat press, heat tape, butcher paper - **Laser engraving:** diode or CO2 laser, 3 mm light [laser-grade plywood](https://yxecreations.com/collections/laser-grade-plywood) or pastel acrylic - this method both engraves the map and cuts the heart in one job - **3D printing:** multi-color printer; cream, blush, sage, and soft blue filaments ## Step 1 - Start from the preset Open [the Heart Keepsake Map preset](/map-designer?preset=heart-keepsake-map). It loads Paris at zoom 13.2 with the **heart export shape** already active - the frame in the preview is the actual cut/crop. Search the city where it happened, then do the thing that makes this gift land: position the *exact spot* - the bar, the bench, the venue - near the heart's visual center, slightly above the point. Zoom 13–13.5 keeps a full neighborhood of street texture inside the lobes; for a small town drop to 14 so the streets still fill the shape. Watch the heart's notch and point: don't let a featureless patch (open water, empty park) occupy either, since they're the shape's focal zones. ## Step 2 - Tune the layers One Solid layer group, **Keepsake map**: - `land` - `#FAF1E9` warm cream. - `water` - `#A8C7D8` powder blue; rivers curve beautifully through the heart shape. - `landusePark` - `#CBDCC2` sage. - Roads, blush ramp: `roadsMotorway` `#C98B8B` width 4, `roadsPrimary` `#C98B8B` width 3, `roadsSecondary` `#D6A4A4` width 2, `roadsStreet` `#E0B9B9` width 1. The palette is intentionally soft, which means two method-specific tweaks are worth knowing. For **sublimation**, the width-1 `#E0B9B9` streets against `#FAF1E9` cream are right at the wash-out line - bump streets to `#D6A4A4` and width 1.5 if the fine grid matters to your composition. For **laser engraving**, the whole blush range converts to light gray; darken all road tiers toward dusty rose `#8B5A5A` before exporting an engrave file or the burn will be faint. For UV and 3D, print it exactly as designed. ## Step 3 - Export - **UV / sublimation:** 4096 px PNG - the heart crop comes through with a transparent surround, so it drops cleanly onto blanks. Toggle **Background off** as well when printing on wood so the grain becomes the cream. - **Laser:** combined SVG - it includes the heart outline for cutting plus the road/water/park fills for engraving. - **3D:** 3MF prints as a heart-shaped plaque directly. - **Hanger hole** is the headline option here: enabled, the heart becomes an ornament - wedding favors, first-Christmas-married, Valentine's. The **heart icon** overlay is redundant on a heart crop; use the **compass** or nothing. Cleanup is rarely needed at this zoom. ## UV & Sublimation Printing ### UV printing 1. Export the transparent-surround PNG (Background off for wood, on for white blanks). 2. In the RIP, align the heart artwork over your blank - pre-cut heart blanks need a jig; flat panels get cut after. 3. Print color direct on wood (no underbase, let grain through) or with underbase on clear acrylic. 4. If printing on a flat panel, cut the heart outline afterward on the laser using the SVG's outline path so print and cut share geometry. ### Sublimation 1. Print **mirrored** at final size - heart-shaped sublimation ornament blanks are standard catalog items, so match the blank's dimensions. 2. Consider the street bump from Step 2; soft palettes lose the most in the press. 3. Tape face-down to the blank, centering the heart artwork on the heart blank carefully - misalignment is glaring on a shaped blank. 4. Press with the settings recommended for your material, paper, and inks, with butcher paper. 5. Peel hot. The blush tones come out softer than screen - on this preset that reads as romantic rather than washed out, but run a test piece first. ## Laser Cutting & Engraving ### Laser engraving The heart outline makes this the most natural engrave-and-cut preset in the set: 1. Recolor the roads darker first (`#8B5A5A` across the tiers) so the raster has contrast, then export the combined SVG. 2. In [LightBurn](https://lightburnsoftware.com/MyLaserTools), set fills (roads, water, parks) to raster engrave and the heart outline to cut. 3. Engrave on 3 mm maple or cherry ply - water at low power, roads at mid - then cut the heart and hanger hole in the same job so nothing shifts. 4. Light sand, oil or clear coat, ribbon through the hole. ## 3D Printing ### 3D printing 1. Export the 3MF - the model arrives heart-shaped with cream base, blush roads, sage parks, and blue water as separate filament regions; merge the three blush tiers to one color to save swaps. 2. Enable the hanger hole at export for an ornament, or skip it for a desk plaque. 3. Slice at 0.12–0.16 mm with matte pastel PLA; 100–140 mm wide hearts print in a couple of hours. 4. Print a pair - one for each half of the couple's story if they met in one city and married in another. ## Make it yours - The obvious hits: Paris, Venice, New York, Kyoto - but the *real* hit is the unglamorous hometown where they actually met. - Two-hearts set: where you met and where you married, identical palette, hung side by side. - Bolder romance swap: roads `#B0496B`, land `#FFF6F0` - more valentine, less watercolor, and it survives sublimation untouched. - Winter wedding swap: land `#F4F6F8`, roads `#7A8BA8`, water `#BCD4E6` for a frost-toned anniversary heart. - Add a **route layer** in deeper rose `#A04E5E` tracing the first-date walk - the single most affecting customization this preset has. - Enable the **Hanger hole** and batch-cut wedding favors from 3 mm ply: the ceremony venue at the heart's center, a date engraved on the back. - Sublimate onto heart-shaped ceramic ornaments for a first-married-Christmas gift. - Switch the export shape to **circle** to de-romanticize the same palette into a soft pastel city print for a nursery. --- Open the tool: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/heart-keepsake-map Read online: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/heart-keepsake-map