Wow! Congrats.
I started out with pins and, gads, something that had a small enough diameter plastic thing like used in clothing stores. [Not the Dritz basting gun; it is too fat for my aesthetics.]
I now use red snappers for top & bottoms of quilts, unless I float the quilt. Then I use the harbor freight tool magnetic strips for the bottom portion of the quilt and adjust as I go.
I made my own side leaders with ticking that enclosed paint stir sticks. I pin the ends of the ticking to my quilt & then let the side clamps attach to the ticking covered paint sticks. The red snapper side thingies are to hard on my arthritis.
When I got my first LA I used pretty sale fabric and then used that for totes and other projects. I then started on charity quilts. Had fun.