Icons look blurry, especially text

I'm using PSP8 to make icons, but I'm having trouble with them looking blurry. When I resize the original image a lot of the quality is lost, and I have a lot of trouble making the text look clear. I've seen quite a few icons that have clear, fine text, but mine always looks blurry. I'm wondering if I'm missing something obvious, or if there's some setting I could change that would help. Maybe I should be using different fonts or something?
Thanks!