those strips with built-in resistors
More info needed, I'm afraid!
These strips: they need 12V? Do you realise you cannot individually dim the LEDs on a strip, for most types of strips? (There are types where you can individually dim each led, they are usually RGB.) What colour will the strips be and how long (in terms of number of LEDs) will each be? How bright must they be: is the installation outdoors and must be visible in sunlight, and weatherproof?
RGB individually addressable strips would be the easiest to use, even if you only want a single colour. You would simply wire them all up in one long string, and that would use a single Arduino pin. No shift registers would be needed because they are built into each led.