I found a stack of slate tiles in my fish room, left over from when I was raising angelfish, and decided to try the spray shellac tip I saw somewhere here in the forums. I dug up a couple of favorite family quotes, found the authors’ signatures online to class them up a little, and here’s the result:
These were sprayed with a coat of shellac and then engraved using settings I found over in Beyond the Manual. The shellac method definitely makes the engraving pop!
They turned out great!
I really like the addition of the signatures. 
Yep! Big visibility improvement with the shellac. I definitely need to get some. 
I learned two things today–shellac and signatures. 
Classy indeed.
Wow! These are great!
When I did a map of the small town my daughter had moved to on slate … it was cool, but, lackluster. May have to buy another slate placemat to re-do!
Love how you have a fish room! Tiles look great.
They look great, shellac really does make a difference.
From one pisciculturist to another, those slate engravings really do pop. They almost look like the were added with photoshop!
I framed the “unreasonable people” quote for my DIL. It’s one of her favorites, and she has a new job at Facebook and needed bling for her desk. 
I cut a frame from 0.25" Baltic birch that press-fit over the slate piece, stacked that onto a second identical shape from 1/8" BB to make it extend beyond the back of the slate, then filled in the spaces with thin craft foam (not sure that was really necessary) and backed it with a solid piece of 1/8" BB. Then I added walnut veneer on the front and back, gave the edges a good sanding and stained them walnut, and finished the whole thing with Danish oil. The result is thick enough to be free-standing.
