I really would like to create a package for php 5.3.3 and then make a ppa for it (I would like the php-fpm support but inside the newest release), however this question goes further than this.
I would like to be hand walked through the whole process of compiling and packaging for ubuntu as I do have an intrest in the whole MOTU project but I feel a little bit out of my depth at the moment.
Regarding creating your own packages, you might want to take a look at the PackagingGuide. A good start is probably the Hands-On session. See also the Launchpad PPA documentation Building a source package and Uploading a package to a PPA.
In your case, the easiest/best thing to do is to base your package of the current Ubuntu PHP source package.
A complete walk through might be none trivial. How about if you start experimenting some, and then ask more specific questions?
If you are interested in MOTO work you might also want to consider joining the mailing list ubuntu-motu as well as the IRC channel #ubuntu-motu (freenode).
There is dotdeb.org, which provides recent packages for the LAMP stack, including PHP.
See the list of PHP-tagged updates.
It is targeted at Debian and not officially supported for Ubuntu, but works quite flawlessly on my Ubuntu boxes.
