Your definition of scrappy is...
 

Over the years I've been looking at scrappy quilts and realize there are at least two themes. One being only a few colors being used so I guess you could call it a theme, another is whatever comes out of the container and lands right side up will be added. A lot of Bonnie Hunter's quilts are too busy for me. I know I have enough fabric to make a scrappy quilt but not sure what path I'll go down.

??? what type of scrapper are you?

I sometimes do controlled scrappy (that's with all kinds of fabrics within a color scheme) but more often I do completely scrappy, using value rather than color to make the design.

I've had the same reaction to Bonnie's quilts when I see pictures online, but when I've seen those same quilts in person they no longer seem so busy to me. I think it's because she deals with relatively small pieces. Seeing the whole quilt in a picture makes those small pieces tend to run together, but when you see them in their actual size you see the design they make, and it's wonderful.

I have progressed to the point where I don't really care for "controlled" scrappy, where the quilt is scrappy but all the fabrics are from one line of fabric so it's matchy-matchy. I find those quilts, for the most part, rather boring.

Count me as another one who finds Bonnie's quilts busy - beautiful, but busy. However, I don't think it's her fabric choices, I think it's her blocks. Dunster is right, they use small pieces. She usually has alternating blocks, and I've often wondered if you made the alternating blocks with a monochromatic theme, would it calm the quilt down a little?

I do a lot of controlled scrappy. For those, including Bonnie Hunter projects, the best way to think of it/choose fabrics that clearly are what they are -- so for Bonnie this year it is gray and orange and gold and red and green. You can have 1 red or 20 reds... they all should be "red".

I have controlled scrappy that are all Blue for example, sorted into values of light, medium and dark. Or where the goal was to go into my purple box and see what came out...

I have controlled scrappy where I'm building each block out of different fabrics, sometimes in the same color placement, sometimes you get wild changes by switching around what is light or dark or whatever blocks. Last year's Bonnie Hunter was really about careful pairing of fabrics.

And then I have the more chaotic scrappy... I have a lot harder time with this sort of thing and still try to have some consistency somewhere. Did a few different takes on that sort of thing last year -- just haven't been very productive this year.

I have updated a couple of my albums lately -- but like I say, it hasn't been a very productive year for me. Here's my album page for many wide examples of scrappy -- some of which I'm more comfortable than others!
https://www.quiltingboard.com/member...56-albums.html

I think there is a difference between a "scrap" quilt and a "scrappy" quilt.

To me, a "scrap" quilt is literally made from leftovers -

I mostly just use lots of colors and even prints to break it up. I use what I have as leftovers.

To me scrappy comes from the leftover scraps; but you can control the value in your quilt at the same time. When I can claim that no yardage was harmed in the making of a quilt, I truly have a scrappy quilt.
Like Peckish, I feel scrap quilts from one line of fabric are boring. There is no oddball neighbor to liven up the neighborhood!

I agree with this. I also wonder then, does a scrap quilt have to be random? While I intend to someday deal with my scraps and make scrap (rather than scrappy) quilts, I can't see myself ever placing pieces of fabric randomly.

To me, scrappy means using a variety of reds where red is called for in the pattern, and so on for each color. My stash is composed mostly of F8, FQ and 1/2 yds., so this is the way I approach all of my quilts. If I wanted to do a quilt with a single fabric representing a color, I'd have to buy the fabric specially for that quilt.

I find scrappy quilts are my least favorite because they so often read to me as very chaotic and busy. That being said, there's a few instances where I like them: 1) if they've got some sort of resting point for the eye like (solid and consistent) sashing or framing around the blocks, 2) if the overall quilt is a color gradient (either all one color from light to dark (or vice versa) or, my favorite, a rainbow color gradient), or 3) if the overall pattern the blocks are arranged in is so strong it pulls all that chaos together (I've seen log cabin blocks arranged with contrasting colors that allow these kinds of patterns to be made but the overall effect has got to be BOLD to pull it off)

I have always loved scrap quilts and was doing them many years ago even before I really realized that that's what I was doing. Now I am hugely inspired by Bonnie Hunter. I struggle to tame some of the "busy-ness" of a scrap quilt, and my best technique for doing that is to build the quilt by putting each block on the design wall, from the very first block. I prefer a theme, such as neutrals, monochromatic, or perhaps analogous colors. I made a bear's paw crumb quilt last year from blues, greens, and purples, with white as the background. It's my favorite quilt.