Colander + plate = secure basket for washing small toys

Andi's hack will bring joy to the parents of the Lego/K'nex obsessed:

My daughter has become obsessed with building toys. In her case, specifically with Bionicles, K'nex and Legos. I'm not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination but I do want to wash these toys once in a while. [Funny, I've never thought about washing Legos. But then, my kids aren't totally obsessed with them. I know kids who take them everywhere, including the driveway and the dusty sidewalk strip. -- Ed.] For most of her hard plastic toys, I feel pretty safe washing them on the top shelf of the dishwasher. I was at a loss, though, to figure out how to effectively clean such tiny pieces. The solution that I came up with is to put them into a plastic colander with suitably small perforations, and then place a plate upside down on top of them. This creates a pretty secure basket in which to wash the pieces without worrying about them floating away or needing to dump standing water out of the container after the wash cycle.

I'm thinking a mesh lingerie bag in the washing machine would do the trick as well. Who else has an idea about how to wash Legos and other tiny toys?

Related: Speed up Lego and other small toy cleaning with a broom and dustpan