No! :) LEDs take a lot of power when you are talking about 5v or 12v systems. LED power is a drop in the bucket when you are talking about power from a 120v line and comparing power to regular incadescent light bulbs or even CFL ones, but not so when you are talking about micro systems. Your 100w light bulb takes as much power as your desktop computer and flat-screen monitor, seriously!

Each LED takes 60mA (0.060amps)...so add them up. If a strip has 12 LEDs then you are talking 0.72 amps...that would burn out a typical linear regulator such as one you would buy at Radio Shack. Well, actually, the linear regulators have a thermal shutoff so it wouldn't kill it, it would just turn your LED strip into a blinker.

You can directly connect the 12v LED strips to the battery, they are meant for unregulated 12v power.