When I was stripping, I tended to do a strip on one side, then a strip on the other. To keep balance, I tried to do mirrored strips from the same board. For my deck, I was using strips with a wide color variety (white, pink, mocha, dark brown, etc.), so it was more of an issue than with my hull, which was a mix of generally similar colors.

I am not quite as bad as Mike Hanks. When he built his daughter's strip-built cradle he numbered each strip as it came off the saw and book matched every pair. The result was great, but took a lot of time. It all depends on what you are aiming for.

I think that plastic cling wrap would work fine. You could probably take a roll and cut it on a bandsaw to make a bunch of 3" or 4" rolls.

Regards,

Marcel