Varnish over Paint and Wood?

[Brain121]

Ok, here is what I am trying to do, I am making a shadow box and I want to give it a nice varnish. I also would like to hand paint some words on it to signify a few events and such. So is this possible? Should I paint what I need to paint on there and then cap the entire thing in the varnish or should I paint on top of the varnish or is this a bad idea all together and I should look into stickers or some other way to put the words on the shadow box?

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Nige F]

well I`d do the words etc. then varnish all over .What`s a shadow box