A pet owner has made dozens of miniature real-life sets including the Great British Bake Of Tent – for her HAMSTERS.
Mum-of-four Beverly Borrill has posed her adorable hammies in a mini ballet studio, at snooker tables and doing gymnastics at their own Olympic Park.
She has built sets for her pets including the hamsters in an art studio, a swimming pool, camping. in an airport, having a picnic, in an office and watching TV.
The 49-year-old Bake Off enthusiast from Devizes in Wiltshire was astounded when she received so much attention for her miniature baking tent on social media.
Complete with mini mixers, table tops and bunting, the tiny tent is an enchanting replica of the nation’s favourite baking show.
Creative Bev has six Syrian hamsters that she and her youngest daughter Isabel use in their quirky set designs – Max, Lulu, Marmite, Mouse, Piggy and Bowie.
Next on their agenda is to recreate another TV favourite – Strictly Come Dancing.
Bev, who works for teaching charity Learning Curve, said: “It started about 18 months ago, one of them disappeared into a crisp packet with his bottom poking out.
“I posted it on Facebook with a little caption saying ‘don’t leave mum in charge of the hamsters’ and it got a lot of attention from there really.
“Every time I go round the shops now I look out for things that would also be great for the hamsters.
“For the Bake Off tent, I made the tables and the bunting myself, I cut the semi circle out of some card and put some fairy lights behind it to make it light up.
“The other little bits like the bottles and jars all came from the craft shop
“The mixers I bought from eBay and they are actually kitchen timers, they’ve got a clock face on the other side which is why they are both facing the same way.
“I received emails from the Bake Off team saying they’d like to use my photo and I was absolutely astounded.
“Sadly, I haven’t got it any more, the tent was quite big – I probably recycled the material and made it into something else.
“I just don’t have to room all of the different pieces unfortunately.
“A couple of the sets are amazing – we’ve got one of a maternity ward when Lulu was humongous and we made cribs for the babies afterwards which was really sweet.
“My mum was watching snooker one day and I just thought I’d love to make little waistcoats for them and that would be really exciting.
“I was walking around a shop and I saw a tiny little table with an umbrella on it and I thought it would perfect for them to have a barbecue.
“I used to be a primary school teacher, and I’d do a lot of cutting and sticking with the children.”
Surprisingly, Bev’s hamsters aren’t quite as friendly as they appear when striking a pose on their favourite sets.
She added: “Hamsters are not very friendly to each other and we have to keep them apart. They’re feisty creatures and they will fight.
“Max and Lulu and are quite okay together now as they’re old but if you put any of the younger ones together we end up with more babies or they just fight.
Having always been besotted with animals, Bev bought her first two hamsters three years ago.
“We’ve got quite a lot of other animals – we’ve got a dog, two guinea pigs and then I’ve got a pony and two tortoises!
“I haven’t considered using any of the other animals yet, the guinea pigs are quite well trained tho so they could work.”
