I'm a die-hard scrappy quilter, have rarely made anything that WASN'T scrappy. As someone else suggested, if you go to quiltville.com (Bonnie Hunter's site) you will get lots of good ideas and she has a bunch of free patterns. If you're uncomfortable with the kitchen sink approach it can really help to have one or two consistent colors to pull things together, like white/cream sashing. I know I've made one of Bonnie's patterns that combined rectangles (bricks) with black & white 4-patches. There was an awful mishmash of fabrics in it but the black & white pulled it all together and it ended up looking super.
Good luck! I think scrappy quilts are the best.