It might be interesting to generate a couple of short lists: one of projects you’d like to tackle and another of data structures you’d like to use. It may take a few projects, but I bet you’ll find opportunities to apply each data structure where it’s best suited.
For reference, I’m a fan of Allen Downey’s teaching style and use Think Java in my AP CS A course. His other Java book, Think Data Structures, was fun to work through as well–I built a search engine! Perhaps you can scaffold your project(s) similarly.