Sea Shell Place Cards...HELP!

I stumbled upon a new project that I need help with. FH and I were out today, and we were walking along the beach and found these shells:



FH turned to me and said, 'These would make great place cards!' We gathered up as many unbroken or non-cracked ones as we could. After I clean them up, I would like to do is turn them over, and put the guests' names on them. I have two questions:

What should I use to put the names on the shells? Paint, ink, something else?

Can I put some clear finish over that to seal it in? If so, what product would I use?

Any help would be appreciated!

you can bleach them to clean them. just be gentle with them
you can use an acrylic paint or even those silver or gold pens.
to shellac them or seal them, michaels and ac moore has spray shelacs or varnishes that you paint on. you can also you clear nail polish, but that might be time consuming.
although this site isn't exactly what you are looking for, it may spark ideas!
http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/feature/famf78beachcrafts/famf78beachcrafts2.html

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Posted by cocoa

you can bleach them to clean them. just be gentle with them
you can use an acrylic paint or even those silver or gold pens.
to shellac them or seal them, michaels and ac moore has spray shelacs or varnishes that you paint on. you can also you clear nail polish, but that might be time consuming.
although this site isn't exactly what you are looking for, it may spark ideas!
http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/feature/famf78beachcrafts/famf78beachcrafts2.html

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Thanks, that is great! In fact, we brought the daughter of a friend of ours along, and she took some shells so that she can paint them (she is quite the 11-year-old artist).