# 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, 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