Mod Podge is the best! Still use it for my crafts.
Yeah, it looks very 1960s to me.
That shellac coating must be amazingly thick, or else you have no moisture/humidity in your soil/part of the world! If I had dug that up out of my southern garden, it would be ...... well, chances are good that it would NOT "be", at all! Not without a coating of kryptonite!