Many apologies to my regular Made in England readers, I’ve been bloody useless at bloggin’ recently :( Ok, so here’s my excuse..

I’ve been doing some heavy research into camera equipment to take to New Zealand (if you’re not aware, me and Nicky will be walking it’s entire length towards the end of the year). Why? I get almost as much pleasure from documenting my trips (blog, photos & video) than actually walking the trails! So with this trip likely to be the most varied and stunningly beautiful to date, I wanted to take it to the next level, not the ultralight level, the uncompromised quality level!

I don’t want to get into gear right now (got work to do), just wanted to post a couple of test shots and let you know the research is over, I’m back in the blogosphere, and will try to hit my target of pushing out at least one post a day from now on :)

Check out the depth of field on this video, hmmm tasty!

I‘m lovin’ Think Geek’s April Fools today, but I tell you what, I would genuinely buy one of these if they were available, brilliant :)

Pixar animator and illustrator Sanjay Patel has been keeping himself busy in the evenings working on his illustrated books. My favourite is The Little Book of Hindu Deities, those little deities are too cute, £6 from Amazon.

Also Ramayana, Divine Loophole looks pretty impressive.

Via: Grain Edit.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any bloggin I know.. My excuse? Well I’m in Amsterdam and computerless in the evenings, I need to get a laptop but don’t want to buy one until they bring out the new MacBooks..

Anyhow, I haven’t been completely idle, I’ve also been working on a wedding invite for my brother who is getting married later this year. Which among other things led to this new t-shirt submission for Threadless, if you’d like them to print it, please head over and vote » Sadly it didn’t make the grade, voting has ended early..

A while back I was repeatedly sent this Beardcap link, I never blogged about it at the time as it was all over the internet already. But the Icelandic company responsible – Vík Prjónsdóttir continues to knock out fresh stuff, in particular I’m lovin’ their new blankets.

The layering of this Shield of Wings (pictured) and the anchored Sea Blanket is mighty nice. Although the one that I really want to get shipped over from Iceland is Hidden World (bottom pic), it’s well wizard :)

Via: Coolhunting.

Ha ha, I have a bit of a soft spot for internet absurdities and Selleck Waterfall Sandwich delivers on that account. The man, his mustache, a waterfall and a sandwich for good measure, strangely entertaining..

Via: Neatorama.

Mark Spurgeon is collecting photos of old hand painted building signage on his site – Preserve. Most shots are from New Zealand and Australia so far, so if you have anymore, send them over »

Lots of great stuff on there, but I’m really taken by these massive numbers painted on doors above and below :)

Normally I would have a blind spot to web polls like online advertising, but not these from Spot The Tiger. Each week a new poll is illustrated by a guest designer and put up for vote, there’s some great designs and interesting results.

Pictured above: Nuclear weapons by Nazario Graziano, Smoking by Ed Nacional and Alcohol minimum price by Adam Morris.

It’s that time of year when designers across the globe check out what Nicholas Felton has been up too the previous year in his annual report. As always, meticulously recorded data and beautifully put together. Letterpressed print version available from his shop (only 2000 copies).

Stunning tattoo style from Amanda Wachob. Looks like nothing I’ve seen before, the colours, the brush strokes, doesn’t look like it could of been made with a needle?

Via: design work life.

Love that random note at the end :)
This fella clearly has some chopsticks up his sleeve:

Holy Crap, NASA are working on this one man helicopter/plane concept that Q in MI5 would be proud of. They’re calling it the Puffin, minus a few propellers here and there, it definitely has some similarities:

I love the quote on Scientific American’s article – “In my opinion, a mass-marketable version will need conventional seating and cup holders”. Yeah who cares if it’s an electric-powered flying suit, I need a fucking cup holder before I get in that thing ;)

Via: The Adventure Blog.

This set of foodie felt patterns ($3.99), just caught my eye, I really want to make a string of felt sausages :) There’s a plethora of other cute felt patterns from julyhobby on her Etsy.

While looking up what the hell you call a string of sausages, I came across Sausages 4 All, awful name I know, but they have a dizzying array of sausages ready to be delivered to your door in the UK. Kangaroo sausage anyone?

Via: Jeanie & Jewell.

21 year old Illustration & animation student Matthew Lyons is knocking out great work reminiscent of classic animation backgrounds. The highlight I think is his (hopefully) growing collection of fictional movie title screens.

The Light-Fingered Raw Material Fiddler below cracked me up, got to be the best movie title ever :)

Via: Matthew Buchanan.

I got a sneak peak of Social Suicides Dictators of Fashion collection when I bought my yellow suit. First impressions, very nice :) Juicy pics on their site, although the online store doesn’t seem to have any stock yet.

I want to like the Churchill suit (top pic) but I’m drawn to the de Gaulle below, lovin’ the asymmetrical leather trim detail. Apparently mimicking a ’Sam Brown’, which is a leather belt that passes over the shoulder to suspend a holster, whatever looks great.