Furniture, Wood and Cabinetry Finishing - Painting over stained wood...

I am making a sign for my wife to put over the sink. Satarted with a peice of oak, cut it to the right size (6 X 24), stained it a red oak (min wax) color. My wife want to paint over the wood stain (Not sure what she wants to write). She has a box full of different craft paints. Will these work for an indoor sign that won't be exposed to any weather elements.

After she paints the sign I was going to go over the sign with a water based clear coat. Would this be OK.

Let me see if I understand correctly, most of the stained oak stays stained, only the writing or artwork is to be painted?

If this is the case, you want to seal the wood first, otherwise any mistakes in the artwork will be hard to remove. Also the paint might leach out to the surronding wood. Once the painting is done, apply 1 more coat of varnish/poly.

I don't know much about craft paints but assume it would be ok to apply over oil base varnish/poly BUT it may be a good idea to use waterbased poly instead - mainly because it won't alter any of the colors.