The Anti-Color Challenge

I have said several times how I hate it when there's a "color" challenge that has nothing but neutrals in it--in my opinion, anything billing itself as a color challenge should have multiple colors, not all neutrals or one color and a bunch of neutrals (my mother says I'm very opinionated).  Imagine my annoyance when I actually kinda liked what I made for yesterday's oh-so-blah non-color challenge at Splitcoast:

Though I wonder if this is TOO blah for a birthday card?  Is it depressing for a birthday, between the clocks ("hey, you're old!") and the lack of color?  I was thinking of sending it to a guy friend of mine, thinking it works as a masculine card.  Maybe I should try it again with some actual colors this time.

The layout is based on the latest awesome sketch at Retro Sketches:

Seriously love that sketch, oh so many possibilities.  Between the lack of colors on today's card and the blah weather, I kinda want to do this sketch again and go gonzo with colors :)  I think I need to make myself a card that will require me to wear sunglasses to look at it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies (all SU!):
Stamps:  Clockworks, Best of Birthdays
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Basic Gray, Basic Black
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Basic Black, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Argyle EF (on the black strip, hard to see in the pic), wide oval punch, dimensionals, Neutrals WWC